BY 


JACK    LONDON 

AUTHOR  OF  "  AD  VENTURE,"    "BURNING  DAYLIGHT, 
"THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD,"   ETC. 


WITH   FRONTISPIECE 


Nefo  gotfc 

THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1911 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1909, 

BY  THE   S.    S.    McCLURE   Co.,   BY  THE   CENTURY  Co.,  AND  BY 

THE  COLUMBIAN-STERLING  PUBLISHING  Co. 

COPYRIGHT,  1910, 

BY  JAS.  HORSBURG,  JR.,  BY  THE  COLUMBIAN-STERLING  PUBLISHING  Co. 

BY  THE  SHORTSTORY  PUBLISHING  Co.,  BY  THE  COLUMBIAN 

PUBLISHING  Co.,  AND  BY  THE  RIDGEWAY  COMPANY. 

COPYRIGHT,  1911, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1911.     Reprinted 
November,  1911. 


Norfaooto 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI       .          .          .  .  .          i 

THE  WHALE  TOOTH  .           ,          .          .  »  •        57 

MAUKI      .          .          .          .          .          .  ,  .        8 1 

"YAH!    YAH  !    YAH  !  "      .           .          .  ".  «      119 

THE  HEATHEN  .          .          .          .          ,  •  t  .149 

THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS     .          .          .  •  ,197 

THE  INEVITABLE  WHITE   MAN       .          •  .  .233 

THE  SEED  OF  McCoy          .        •  .          .  .  .      257 


V 

2G1339 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

DESPITE  the  heavy  clumsiness  of  her 
lines,  the  Aorai  handled  easily  in 
the  light  breeze,  and  her  captain 
ran  her  well  in  before  he  hove  to  just  outside 
the  suck  of  the  surf.  The  atoll  of  Hikueru 
lay  low  on  the  water,  a  circle  of  pounded 
coral  sand  a  hundred  yards  wide,  twenty 
miles  in  circumference,  and  from  three  to 
five  feet  above  high-water  mark.  On  the 
bottom  of  the  huge  and  glassy  lagoon  was 
much  pearl  shell,  and  from  the  deck  of  the 
schooner,  across  the  slender  ring  of  the  atoll, 
the  divers  could  be  seen  at  work.  But 
the  lagoon  had  no  entrance  for  even  a  trad 
ing  schooner.  With  a  favoring  breeze  cut 
ters  could  win  in  through  the  tortuous  and 
shallow  channel,  but  the  schooners  lay  off 
and  on  outside  and  sent  in  their  small 
boats. 

3 


4  THE   HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

The  Aorai  swung  out  a  boat  smartly, 
into  which  sprang  half  a  dozen  brown- 
skinned  sailors  clad  only  in  scarlet  loin 
cloths.  They  took  the  oars,  while  in  the 
stern-sheets,  at  the  steering  sweep,  stood 
a  young  man  garbed  in  the  tropic  white 
that  marks  the  European.  But  he  was 
not  all  European.  The  golden  strain  of 
Polynesia  betrayed  itself  in  the  sun-gilt  of 
his  fair  skin  and  cast  up  golden  sheens  and 
lights  through  the  glimmering  blue  of  his 
eyes.  Raoul  he  was,  Alexandre  Raoul, 
youngest  son  of  Marie  Raoul,  the  wealthy 
quarter-caste,  who  owned  and  managed 
half  a  dozen  trading  schooners  similar  to 
the  Aorai.  Across  an  eddy  just  outside  the 
entrance,  and  in  and  through  and  over  a 
boiling  tide-rip,  the  boat  fought  its  way  to 
the  mirrored  calm  of  the  lagoon.  Young 
Raoul  leaped  out  upon  the  white  sand  and 
shook  hands  with  a  tall  native.  The  man's 
chest  and  shoulders  were  magnificent,  but 
the  stump  of  a  right  arm,  beyond  the  flesh 
of  which  the  age- whitened  bone  projected 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI          /     5 

several  inches,  attested  the  encounter  with 
a  sharkj  that  had  put  an  end  to  his  diving 
days  and  made  him  a  fawner  and  an  in 
triguer  for  small  favors. 

"Have  you  heard,  Alec  ?"  were  his  first 
words.  "Mapuhi  has  found  a  pearl  — 
such  a  pearl.  Never  was  there  one  like  it 
ever  fished  up  in  Hikueru,  nor  in  all  the 
Paumotus,  nor  in  all  the  world.  Buy  it 
from  him.  He  has  it  now.  And  remem 
ber  that  I  told  you  first.  He  is  a  fool  and 
you  can  get  it  cheap.  Have  you  any 
tobacco  ?" 

Straight  up  the  beach  to  a  shack  under 
a  pandanus-tree  Raoul  headed.  He  was  his 
mother's  supercargo,  and  his  business  was 
to  comb  all  the  Paumotus  for  the  wealth  of 
copra,  shell,  and  pearls  that  they  yielded  up. 

He  was  a  young  supercargo,  it  was  his 
second  voyage  in  such  capacity,  and  he 
suffered  much  secret  worry  from  his  lack 
of  experience  in  pricing  pearls.  But  when 
Mapuhi  exposed  the  pearl  to  his  sight  he 
managed  to  suppress  the  startle  it  gave 


6  THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

him,  and  to  maintain  a  careless,  commercial 
expression  on  his  face.  For  the  pearl  had 
struck  him  a  blow.  It  was  large  as  a 
pigeon  egg,  a  perfect  sphere,  of  a  white 
ness  that  reflected  opalescent  lights  from 
all  colors  about  it.  It  was  alive.  Never 
had  he  seen  anything  like  it.  When  Ma- 
puhi  dropped  it  into  his  hand  he  was  sur 
prised  by  the  weight  of  it.  That  showed 
that  it  was  a  good  pearl.  He  examined 
it  closely,  through  a  pocket  magnifying- 
glass.  It  was  without  flaw  or  blemish. 
The  purity  of  it  seemed  almost  to  melt 
into  the  atmosphere  out  of  his  hand.  In 
the  shade  it  was  softly  luminous,  gleaming 
like  a  tender  moon.  So  translucently  white 
was  it,  that  when  he  dropped  it  into  a  glass 
of  water  he  had  difficulty  in  finding  it. 
So  straight  and  swiftly  had  it  sunk  to  the 
bottom  that  he  knew  its  weight  was  excel 
lent. 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  for  it?"  he 
asked,  with  a  fine  assumption  of  noncha 
lance. 


THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  7 

"I  want —  Mapuhi  began,  and  be 
hind  him,  framing  his  own  dark  face,  the 
dark  faces  of  two  women  and  a  girl  nodded 
concurrence  in  what  he  wanted.  Their 
heads  were  bent  forward,  they  were  ani 
mated  by  a  suppressed  eagerness,  their 
eyes  flashed  avariciously. 

"I  want  a  house,"  Mapuhi  went  on. 
"It  must  have  a  roof  of  galvanized  iron 
and  an  octagon-drop-clock.  It  must  be 
six  fathoms  long  with  a  porch  all  around. 
A  big  room  must  be  in  the  centre,  with 
a  round  table  in  the  middle  of  it  and  the 
octagon-drop-clock  on  the  wall.  There 
must  be  four  bedrooms,  two  on  each  side 
of  the  big  room,  and  in  each  bedroom  must 
be  an  iron  bed,  two  chairs,  and  a  wash- 
stand.  And  back  of  the  house  must  be 
a  kitchen,  a  good  kitchen,  with  pots  and 
pans  and  a  stove.  And  you  must  build  the 
house  on  my  island,  which  is  Fakarava." 

"Is  that  all  ?"  Raoul  asked  incredulously. 

"There  must  be  a  sewing-machine," 
spoke  up  Tefara,  Mapuhi's  wife. 


8  THE   HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

"Not  forgetting  the  octagon-drop-clock," 
added  Nauri,  Mapuhi's  mother. 

"Yes,  that  is  all,"  said  Mapuhi. 

Young  Raoul  laughed.  He  laughed  long 
and  heartily.  But  while  he  laughed  he 
secretly  performed  problems  in  mental 
arithmetic.  He  had  never  built  a  house 
in  his  life,  and  his  notions  concerning  house 
building  were  hazy.  While  he  laughed, 
he  calculated  the  cost  of  the  voyage  to 
Tahiti  for  materials,  of  the  materials  them 
selves,  of  the  voyage  back  again  to  Faka- 
rava,  and  the  cost  of  landing  the  materials 
and  of  building  the  house.  It  would  come 
to  four  thousand  French  dollars,  allowing 
a  margin  for  safety  —  four  thousand  French 
dollars  were  equivalent  to  twenty  thousand 
francs.  It  was  impossible.  How  was  he 
to  know  the  value  of  such  a  pearl  ?  Twenty 
thousand  francs  was  a  lot  of  money --and 
of  his  mother's  money  at  that. 

"Mapuhi,"  he  said,  "you  are  a  big  fool. 
Set  a  money  price." 

But  Mapuhi  shook  his  head,  and  the 
three  heads  behind  him  shook  with  his. 


THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  9 

"I  want  the  house,"  he  said.  "It  must 
be  six  fathoms  long  with  a  porch  all 
around  — " 

"Yes,  yes,"  Raoul  interrupted.  "I  know 
all  about  your  house,  but  it  won't  do.  I'll 
give  you  a  thousand  Chili  dollars." 

The  four  heads  chorused  a  silent  neg 
ative. 

"And  a  hundred  Chili  dollars  in  trade." 

"I  want  the  house,"  Mapuhi  began. 

"What  good  will  the  house  do  you  ?" 
Raoul  demanded.  "The  first  hurricane 
that  comes  along  will  wash  it  away.  You 
ought  to  know.  Captain  Raffy  says  it 
looks  like  a  hurricane  right  now." 

"Not  on  Fakarava,"  said  Mapuhi.  "The 
land  is  much  higher  there.  On  this  island, 
yes.  Any  hurricane  can  sweep  Hikueru. 
I  will  have  the  house  on  Fakarava.  It 
must  be  six  fathoms  long  with  a  porch  all 
around  — " 

And  Raoul  listened  again  to  the  tale  of  the 
house.  Several  hours  he  spent  in  the  en 
deavor  to  hammer  the  house-obsession  out 


io  THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

of  Mapuhi's  mind ;  but  Mapuhi's  mother 
and  wife,  and  Ngakura,  Mapuhi's  daughter, 
bolstered  him  in  his  resolve  for  the  house. 
Through  the  open  doorway,  while  he  lis 
tened  for  the  twentieth  time  to  the  detailed 
description  of  the  house  that  was  wanted, 
Raoul  saw  his  schooner's  second  boat  draw 
up  on  the  beach.  The  sailors  rested  on  the 
oars,  advertising  haste  to  be  gone.  The 
first  mate  of  the  Aorai  sprang  ashore,  ex 
changed  a  word  with  the  one-armed  native, 
then  hurried  toward  Raoul.  The  day  grew 
suddenly  dark,  as  a  squall  obscured  the 
face  of  the  sun.  Across  the  lagoon  Raoul 
could  see  approaching  the  ominous  line  of 
the  puff  of  wind. 

"  Captain  Raffy  says  you've  got  to  get 
to  hell  outa  here,"  was  the  mate's  greeting. 
"If  there's  any  shell,  we've  got  to  run  the 
risk  of  picking  it  up  later  on  —  so  he  says. 
The  barometer's  dropped  to  twenty-nine- 
seventy." 

The  gust  of  wind  struck  the  pandanus- 
tree  overhead  and  tore  through  the  palms 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  n 

beyond,  flinging  half  a  dozen  ripe  cocoanuts 
with  heavy  thuds  to  the  ground.  Then 
came  the  rain  out  of  the  distance,  advanc 
ing  with  the  roar  of  a  gale  of  wind  and 
( causing  the  water  of  the  lagoon  to  smoke  in 
driven  windrows. \  The  sharp  rattle  of  the 
first  drops  was  on  the  leaves  when  Raoul 
sprang  to  his  feet. 

"A  thousand  Chili  dollars,  cash  down, 
Mapuhi,"  he  said.  "And  two  hundred 
Chili  dollars  in  trade." 

"I  want  a  house  — "  the  other  began. 

"Mapuhi!"  Raoul  yelled,  in  order  to 
make  himself  heard.  "You  are  a  fool  !" 

He  flung  out  of  the  house,  and,  side  by 
side  with  the  mate,  fought  his  way  down 
the  beach  toward  the  boat.  They  could 
not  see  the  boat.  The  tropic  rain  sheeted 
about  them  so  that  they  could  see  only 
the  beach  under  their  feet  and  the  spiteful 
little  waves  from  the  lagoon  that  snapped 
and  bit  at  the  sand.  A  figure  appeared 
through  the  deluge.  It  was  Huru-Huru, 
the  man  with  the  one  arm. 


12  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

"Did  you  get  the  pearl?"  he  yelled  in 
RaouPs  ear. 

"Mapuhi  is  a  fool  !"  was  the  answering 
yell,  and  the  next  moment  they  were  lost 
to  each  other  in  the  descending  water. 

Half  an  hour  later,  Huru-Huru,  watching 
from  the  seaward  side  of  the  atoll,  saw  the 
two  boats  hoisted  in  and  the  Aorai  point 
ing  her  nose  out  to  sea.  And  near  her, 
just  come  in  from  the  sea  on  the  wings  of 
the  squall,  he  saw  another  schooner  hove 
to  and  dropping  a  boat  into  the  water.  He 
knew  her.  It  was  the  Orohena,  owned  by 
Toriki,  the  half-caste  trader,  who  served 
as  his  own  supercargo  and  who  doubt 
lessly  was  even  then  in  the  stern-sheets  of 
the  boat.  Huru-Huru  chuckled.  He  knew 
that  Mapuhi  owed  Toriki  for  trade-goods 
'advanced  the  year  before. 

The  squall  had  passed.  The  hot  sun  was 
blazing  down,  and  the  lagoon  was  once  more 
a  mirror.  But  the  air  was  sticky  like  mucil 
age,  and  the  weight  of  it  seemed  to  burden 
the  lungs  and  make  breathing  difficult. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  13 

"Have  you  heard  the  news,  Toriki  ?" 
Huru-Huru  asked.  "Mapuhi  has  found 
a  pearl.  Never  was  there  a  pearl  like  it 
ever  fished  up  in  Hikueru,  nor  anywhere 
in  the  Paumotus,  nor  anywhere  in  all  the 
world.  Mapuhi  is  a  fool.  Besides,  he 
owes  you  money.  Remember  that  I  told 
you  first.  Have  you  any  tobacco  ?" 

And  to  the  grass-shack  of  Mapuhi  went 
Toriki.  He  was  a  masterful  man,  withal  a 
fairly  stupid  one.  Carelessly  he  glanced 
at  the  wonderful  pearl  —  glanced  for  a 
moment  only;  and  carelessly  he  dropped 
it  into  his  pocket. 

"You  are  lucky,"  he  said.  "It  is  a  nice 
pearl.  I  will  give  you  credit  on  the  books." 

"I   want    a   house,"   Mapuhi   began,    in 

consternation.     "It   must   be    six   fathoms 
j> 

"Six  fathoms  your  grandmother!"  was 
the  trader's  retort.  "You  want  to  pay 
up  your  debts,  that's  what  you  want.  You 
owed  me  twelve  hundred  dollars  Chili. 
Very  well ;  you  owe  them  no  longer.  The 


14  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

amount  is  squared.  Besides,  I  will  give 
you  credit  for  two  hundred  Chili.  If,  when 
I  get  to  Tahiti,  the  pearl  sells  well,  I  will 
give  you  credit  for  another  hundred  — 
that  will  make  three  hundred.  But  rnind, 
only  if  the  pearl  sells  well.  I  may  even 
lose  money  on  it." 

Mapuhi  folded  his  arms  in  sorrow  and 
sat  with  bowed  head.  He  had  been  robbed 
of  his  pearl.  In  place  of  the  house,  he  had 
paid  a  debt.  There  was  nothing  to  show 
for  the  pearl. 

"You  are  a  fool,"  said  Tefara. 

"You  are  a  fool,"  said  Nauri,  his  mother. 
"Why  did  you  let  the  pearl  into  his  hand  ?" 

"What  was  I  to  do  ?"  Mapuhi  protested. 
"I  owed  him  the  money.  He  knew  I  had 
the  pearl.  You  heard  him  yourself  ask 
to  see  it.  I  had  not  told  him.  He  knew. 
Somebody  else  told  him.  And  I  owed  him 
the  money." 

"Mapuhi  is  a  fool,"  mimicked  Ngakura. 

She  was  twelve  years  old  and  did  not 
know  any  better.  Mapuhi  relieved  his 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  15 

feelings  by  sending  her  reeling  from  a  box 
on  the  ear ;  while  Tefara  and  Nauri  burst 
into  tears  and  continued  to  upbraid  him 
after  the  manner  of  women. 

Huru-Huru,  watching  on  the  beach,  saw 
a  third  schooner  that  he  knew  heave  to 
outside  the  entrance  and  drop  a  boat. 
It  was  the  Hira,  well  named,  for  she  was 
owned  by  Levy,  the  German  Jew,  the  great 
est  pearl-buyer  of  them  all,  and,  as  was  well 
known,  Hira  was  the  Tahitian  god  of  fish 
ermen  and  thieves. 

"Have  you  heard  the  news  ?"  Huru- 
Huru  asked,  as  Levy,  a  fat  man  with  massive 
asymmetrical  features,  stepped  out  upon 
the  beach.  "Mapuhi  has  found  a  pearl. 
There  was  never  a  pearl  like  it  in  Hikueru, 
in  all  the  Paumotus,  in  all  the  world. 
Mapuhi  is  a  fool.  He  has  sold  it  to  Toriki 
for  fourteen  hundred  Chili  —  I  listened 
outside  and  heard.  Toriki  is  likewise  a 
fool.  You  can  buy  it  from  him  cheap. 
Remember  that  I  told  you  first.  Have 
you  any  tobacco  ?" 


1 6  THE   HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI 

"Where  is  Toriki  ?" 

"In  the  house  of  Captain  Lynch,  drinking 
absinthe.  He  has  been  there  an  hour." 

And  while  Levy  and  Toriki  drank  ab 
sinthe  and  chaffered  over  the  pearl,  Huru- 
Huru  listened  and  heard  the  stupendous 
price  of  twenty-five  thousand  francs  agreed 
upon. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  both  the  Orohena 
and  the  Hira,  running  in  close  to  the  shore, 
began  firing  guns  and  signalling  frantically. 
The  three  men  stepped  outside  in  time  to 
see  the  two  schooners  go  hastily  about  and 
head  off  shore,  dropping  mainsails  and 
flying-jibs  on  the  run  in  the  teeth  of  the 
squall  that  heeled  them  far  over  on  the 
whitened  water.  Then  the  rain  blotted 
them  out. 

"They'll  be  back  after  it's  over,"  said 
Toriki.  "We'd  better  be  getting  out  of 
here." 

"I  reckon  the  glass  has  fallen  some  more," 
said  Captain  Lynch. 

He  was  a  white-bearded  sea-captain,  too 


THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  17 

old  for  service,  who  had  learned  that  the 
only  way  to  live  on  comfortable  terms  with 
his  asthma  was  on  Hikueru.  He  went  inside 
to  look  at  the  barometer. 

"Great  God  !"  they  heard  him  exclaim, 
and  rushed  in  to  join  him  at  staring  at  a 
dial,  which  marked  twenty-nine-twenty. 

Again  they  came  out,  this  time  anxiously 
to  consult  sea  and  sky.  The  squall  had 
cleared  away,  but  the  sky  remained  over 
cast.  The  two  schooners,  under  all  sail 
and  joined  by  a  third,  could  be  seen  making 
back.  A  veer  in  the  wind  induced  them 
to  slack  off  sheets,  and  five  minutes  after 
ward  a  sudden  veer  from  the  opposite 
quarter  caught  all  three  schooners  aback, 
and  those  on  shore  could  see  the  boom- 
tackles  being  slacked  away  or  cast  off  on 
the  jump.  The  sound  of  the  surf  was 
loud,  hollow,  and  menacing,  and  a  heavy 
swell  was  setting  in.  A  terrible  sheet  of 
lightning  burst  before  their  eyes,  illuminat 
ing  the  dark  day,  and  the  thunder  rolled 
wildly  about  them. 


1 8  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

Toriki  and  Levy  broke  into  a  run  for 
their  boats,  the  latter  ambling  along  like 
a  panic-stricken  hippopotamus.  As  their 
two  boats  swept  out  the  entrance,  they 
passed  the  boat  of  the  Aorai  coming  in.  In 
the  stern-sheets,  encouraging  the  rowers, 
was  Raoul.  Unable  to  shake  the  vision 
of  the  pearl  from  his  mind,  he  was  returning 
to  accept  Mapuhi's  price  of  a  house. 

He  landed  on  the  beach  in  the  midst  of  a 
driving  thunder  squall  that  was  so  dense 
that  he  collided  with  Huru-Huru  before 
he  saw  him. 

"Too  late,"  yelled  Huru-Huru.  "Mapuhi 
sold  it  to  Toriki  for  fourteen  hundred  Chili, 
and  Toriki  sold  it  to  Levy  for  twenty-five 
thousand  francs.  And  Levy  will  sell  it 
in  France  for  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 
Have  you  any  tobacco  ? r< 

Raoul  felt  relieved.  His  troubles  about 
the  pearl  were  over.  He  need  not  worry 
any  more,  even  if  he  had  not  got  the 
pearl.  But  he  did  not  believe  Huru-Huru. 
Mapuhi  might  well  have  sold  it  for  fourteen 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  19 

hundred  Chili,  but  that  Levy,  who  knew 
pearls,  should  have  paid  twenty-five  thou 
sand  francs  was  too  wide  a  stretch.  Raoul 
decided  to  interview  Captain  Lynch  on 
the  subject,  but  when  he  arrived  at  that 
ancient  mariner's  house,  he  found  him  look 
ing  wide-eyed  at  the  barometer. 

"What  do  you  read  it  ?"  Captain  Lynch 
asked  anxiously,  rubbing  his  spectacles 
and  staring  again  at  the  instrument. 

"Twenty-nine-ten,"  said  Raoul.  "I 
have  never  seen  it  so  low  before." 

"I  should  say  not !"  snorted  the  captain. 
"Fifty  years  boy  and  man  on  all  the  seas, 
and  IVe  never  seen  it  go  down  to  that. 
Listen!" 

They  stood  for  a  moment,  while  the  surf 
rumbled  and  shook  the  house.  Then  they 
went  outside.  The  squall  had  passed. 
They  could  see  the  Aorai  lying  becalmed 
a  mile  away  and  pitching  and  tossing  madly 
in  the  tremendous  seas  that  rolled  in  stately 
procession  down  out  of  the  northeast  and 
flung  themselves  furiously  upon  the  coral 


20  THE  HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI 

shore.  One  of  the  sailors  from  the  boat 
pointed  at  the  mouth  of  the  passage  and 
shook  his  head.  Raoul  looked  and  saw 
a  white  anarchy  of  foam  and  surge.^ 

"I  guess  I'll  stay  with  you  to-night, 
Captain,"  he  said ;  then  turned  to  the 
sailor  and  told  him  to  haul  the  boat  out 
and  to  find  shelter  for  himself  and  fellows. 

"Twenty-nine  flat,"  Captain  Lynch  re 
ported,  coming  out  from  another  look  at 
the  barometer,  a  chair  in  his  hand. 

He  sat  down  and  stared  at  the  spectacle 
of  the  sea.  The  sun  came  out,  increasing 
the  sultriness  of  the  day,  while  the  dead 
calm  still  held.  The  seas  continued  to 
increase  in  magnitude. 

"What  makes  that  sea  is  what  gets  me," 
Raoul  muttered  petulantly.  "There  is  no 
wind,  yet  look  at  it,  look  at  that  fellow 
there!" 

Miles  in  length,  carrying  tens  of  thou 
sands  of  tons  in  weight,  its  impact  shook 
the  frail  atoll  like  an  earthquake.  Captain 
Lynch  was  startled. 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  21 

"Gracious!"  he  exclaimed,  half-rising 
from  his  chair,  then  sinking  back. 

"But  there  is  no  wind,"  Raoul  persisted. 
"I  could  understand  it  if  there  was  wind 
along  with  it." 

"You'll  get  the  wind  soon  enough  with 
out  worryin'  for  it,"  was  the  grim  reply. 

The  two  men  sat  on  in  silence.  The 
sweat  stood  out  on  their  skin  in  myriads 
of  tiny  drops  that  ran  together,  forming 
blotches  of  moisture,  which,  in  turn,  coa 
lesced  into  rivulets  that  dripped  to  the 
ground.  They  panted  for  breath,  the  old 
man's  efforts  being  especially  painful.  A 
sea  swept  up  the  beach,  licking  around  the 
trunks  of  the  cocoanuts  and  subsiding 
almost  at  their  feet. 

"'Way  past  high-water  mark,"  Captain 
Lynch  remarked;  "and  I've  been  here 
eleven  years."  He  looked  at  his  watch. 
"It  is  three  o'clock." 

A  man  and  woman,  at  their  heels  a  motley 
following  of  brats  and  curs,  trailed  dis 
consolately  by.  They  came  to  a  halt 


22  THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

beyond  the  house,  and,  after  much  irreso 
lution,  sat  down  in  the  sand.  A  few  min 
utes  later  another  family  trailed  in  from 
the  opposite  direction,  the  men  and  women 
carrying  a  heterogeneous  assortment  of 
possessions.  And  soon  several  hundred  per 
sons  of  all  ages  and  sexes  were  congregated 
about  the  captain's  dwelling.  He  called 
to  one  new  arrival,  a  woman  with  a  nursing 
babe  in  her  arms,  and  in  answer  received 
the  information  that  her  house  had  just 
been  swept  into  the  lagoon. 

This  was  the  highest  spot  of  land  in 
miles,  and  already,  in  many  places  on  either 
hand,  the  great  seas  were  making  a  clean 
breach  of  the  slender  ring  of  the  atoll  and 
surging  into  the  lagoon.  Twenty  miles 
around  stretched  the  ring  of  the  atoll, 
and  in  no  place  was  it  more  than  fifty 
fathoms  wide.  It  was  the  height  of  the 
diving  season,  and  from  all  the  islands 
around,  even  as  far  as  Tahiti,  the  natives 
had  gathered. 

"There  are  twelve  hundred  men,  women, 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  23 

and  children  here,"  said  Captain  Lynch. 
"I  wonder  how  many  will  be  here  to-mor 
row  morning." 

•^ 

"But  why  don't  it  blow?  —  that's  what 
I  want  to  know,"  Raoul  demanded. 

"Don't  worry,  young  man,  don't  worry; 
you'll  get  your  troubles  fast  enough." 

Even  as  Captain  Lynch  spoke,  a  great 
watery  mass  smote  the  atoll.  The  sea- 
water  churned  about  them  three  inches 
deep  under  their  chairs.  A  low  wail  of 
fear  went  up  from  the  many  women.  The 
children,  with  clasped  hands,  stared  at 
the  immense  rollers  and  cried  piteously. 
Chickens  and  cats,  wading  perturbedly  in 
the  water,  as  by  common  consent,  with 
flight  and  scramble  took  refuge  on  the  roof 
of  the  captain's  house.  A  Paumotan,  with 
a  litter  of  new-born  puppies  in  a  basket, 
climbed  into  a  cocoanut  tree  and  twenty 
feet  above  the  ground  made  the  basket 
fast.  The  mother  floundered  about  in  the 
water  beneath,  whining  and  yelping. 

And  still  the  sun  shone  brightly  and  the 


24  THE   HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI 

dead  calm  continued.  They  sat  and 
watched  the  seas  and  the  insane  pitching 
of  the  Aorai.  Captain  Lynch  gazed  at 
the  huge  mountains  of  water  sweeping  in 
until  he  could  gaze  no  more.  He  covered 
his  face  with  his  hands  to  shut  out  the 
sight ;  then  went  into  the  house. 

"Twenty-eight-sixty,"  he  said  quietly 
when  he  returned. 

In  his  arm  was  a  coil  of  small  rope.  He 
cut  it  into  two-fathom  lengths,  giving  one 
to  Raoul  and,  retaining  one  for  himself,  dis 
tributed  the  remainder  among  the  women 
with  the  advice  to  pick  out  a  tree  and  climb. 

A  light  air  began  to  blow  out  of  the  north 
east,  and  the  fan  of  it  on  his  cheek  seemed 
to  cheer  Raoul  up.  He  could  see  the  Aorai 
trimming  her  sheets  and  heading  off  shore, 
and  he  regretted  that  he  was  not  on  her. 
She  would  get  away  at  any  rate,  but  as  for 
the  atoll  —  A  sea  breached  across,  almost 
sweeping  him  off  his  feet,  and  he  selected 
a  tree.  Then  he  remembered  the  barom 
eter  and  ran  back  to  the  house.  He  en- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  25 

countered  Captain  Lynch  on  the  same 
errand  and  together  they  went  in. 

"  Twenty-eight-  twenty,"  said  the  old 
mariner.  "It's  going  to  be  fair  hell  around 
here  —  what  was  that  ?" 

The  air  seemed  filled  with  the  rush  of 
something.  The  house  quivered  and  vi 
brated,  and  they  heard  the  thrumming 
of  a  mighty  note  of  sound.  The  windows 
rattled.  Two  panes  crashed ;  a  draught 
of  wind  tore  in,  striking  them  and  making 
them  stagger.  The  door  opposite  banged 
shut,  shattering  the  latch.  The  white  door 
knob  crumbled  in  fragments  to  the  floor. 
The  room's  walls  bulged  like  a  gas  balloon 
in  the  process  of  sudden  inflation.  Then 
came  a  new  sound  like  the  rattle  of  mus 
ketry,  as  the  spray  from  a  sea  struck  the 
wall  of  the  house.  Captain  Lynch  looked 
at  his  watch.  It  was  four  o'clock.  He 
put  on  a  coat  of  pilot  cloth,  unhooked  the 
barometer,  and  stowed  it  away  in  a  capa 
cious  pocket.  Again  a  sea  struck  the  house, 
with  a  heavy  thud,  and  the  light  building 


26  THE  HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

tilted,  twisted  quarter-around  on  its  foun 
dation,  and  sank  down,  its  floor  at  an  angle 
of  ten  degrees. 

Raoul  went  out  first.  The  wind  caught 
him  and  whirled  him  away.  He  noted 
that  it  had  hauled  around  to  the  east. 
With  a  great  effort  he  threw  himself  on  the 
sand,  crouching  and  holding  his  own. 
Captain  Lynch,  driven  like  a  wisp  of  straw, 
sprawled  over  him.  Two  of  the  AoraVs 
sailors,  leaving  a  cocoanut  tree  to  which 
they  had  been  clinging,  came  to  their  aid, 
leaning  against  the  wind  at  impossible 
angles  and  fighting  and  clawing  every  inch 
of  the  way. 

The  old  man's  joints  were  stiff  and  he 
could  not  climb,  so  the  sailors,  by  means 
of  short  ends  of  rope  tied  together,  hoisted 
him  up  the  trunk,  a  few  feet  at  a  time,  till 
they  could  make  him  fast,  at  the  top  of  the 
tree,  fifty  feet  from  the  ground.  Raoul 
passed  his  length  of  rope  around  the  base 
of  an  adjacent  tree  and  stood  looking  on. 
The  wind  was  frightful.  He  had  never 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  27 

dreamed  it  could  blow  so  hard.  A  sea 
breached  across  the  atoll,  wetting  him  to 
the  knees  ere  it  subsided  into  the  lagoon. 
The  sun  had  disappeared,  and  a  lead- 
colored  twilight  settled  down.  A  few 
drops  of  rain,  driving  horizontally,  struck 
him.  The  impact  was  like  that  of  leaden 
pellets.  A  splash  of  salt  spray  struck  his 
face.  It  was  like  the  slap  of  a  man's  hand. 
His  cheeks  stung,  and  involuntary  tears  of 
pain  were  in  his  smarting  eyes.  Several 
hundred  natives  had  taken  to  the  trees, 
and  he  could  have  laughed  at  the  bunches 
of  human  fruit  clustering  in  the  tops. 
Then,  being  Tahitian-born,  he  doubled 
his  body  at  the  waist,  clasped  the  trunk 
of  his  tree  with  his  hands,  pressed  the  soles 
of  his  feet  against  the  near  surface  of  the 
trunk,  and  began  to  walk  up  the  tree.  At 
the  top  he  found  two  women,  two  children, 
and  a  man.  One  little  girl  clasped  a  house- 
cat  in  her  arms. 

From   his   eyrie   he   waved   his   hand   to 
Captain   Lynch,   and   that   doughty   patri- 


28  THE  HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

arch  waved  back.  Raoul  was  appalled 
at  the  sky.  It  had  approached  much 
nearer  —  in  fact,  it  seemed  just  over  his 
head ;  and  it  had  turned  from  lead  to 
black.  Many  people  were  still  on  the 
ground  grouped  about  the  bases  of  the  trees 
and  holding  on.  Several  such  clusters  were 
praying,  and  in  one  the  Mormon  mission 
ary  was  exhorting.  A  weird  sound,  rhyth 
mical,  faint  as  the  faintest  chirp  of  a 
far  cricket,  enduring  but  for  a  moment, 
but  in  that  moment  suggesting  to  him 
vaguely  the  thought  of  heaven  and  celes 
tial  music,  came  to  his  ear.  He  glanced 
about  him  and  saw,  at.  the  base  of  another 
tree,  a  large  cluster  of  people  holding  on 
by  ropes  and  by  one  another.  He  could 
see  their  faces  working  and  their  lips  mov 
ing  in  unison.  No  sound  came  to  him, 
but  he  knew  that  they  were  singing  hymns. 
Still  the  wind  continued  to  blow  harder. 
By  no  conscious  process  could  he  measure 
it,  for  it  had  long  since  passed  beyond  all 
his  experience  of  wind ;  but  he  knew  some- 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  29 

how,  nevertheless,  that  if  was  blowing 
harder.  Not  far  away  a  tree  was  uprooted, 
flinging  its  load  of  human  beings  to  the 
ground.  A  sea  washed  across  the  strip 
of  sand,  and  they  were  gone.  Things  were 
happening  quickly.  He  saw  a  brown 
shoulder  and  a  black  head  silhouetted 
against  the  churning  white  of  the  lagoon. 
The  next  instant  that,  too,  had  vanished. 
Other  trees  were  going,  falling  and  criss 
crossing  like  matches.  He  was  amazed 
at  the  power  of  the  wind.  His  own  tree 
was  swaying  perilously,  one  woman  was 
wailing  and  clutching  the  little  girl,  who 
in  turn  still  hung  on  to  the  cat. 

The  man,  holding  the  other  child,  touched 
Raoul's  arm  and  pointed.  \  He  looked  and 
saw  the  Mormon  church  careering  drunk- 
enly  a  hundred  feet  away.  )  It  had  been 
torn  from  its  foundations,  and  wind  and 
sea  were  heaving  and  shoving  it  toward 
the  lagoon.  A  frightful  wall  of  water  caught 
it,  tilted  it,  and  flung  it  against  half  a  dozen 
cocoanut  trees.  The  bunches  of  human 


30  THE   HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

fruit  fell  like  ripe  cocoahuts.  The  sub 
siding  wave  showed  them  on  the  ground, 
some  lying  motionless,  others  squirming 
and  writhing.  They  reminded  him 
strangely  of  ants.  He  was  not  shocked. 
He  had  risen  above  horror.  Quite  as  a 
matter  of  course  he  noted  the  succeeding 
wave  sweep  the  sand  clean  of  the  human 
wreckage.  A  third  wave,  more  colossal 
than  any  he  had  yet  seen,  hurled  the  church 
into  the  lagoon,  where  it  floated  off  into  the 
obscurity  to  leewrard,  half-submerged,  re 
minding  him  for  all  the  world  of  a  Noah's 
ark. 

He  looked  for  Captain  Lynch's  house,  and 
was  surprised  to  find  it  gone.  Things 
certainly  were  happening  quickly.  He 
noticed  that  many  of  the  people  in  the  trees 
that  still  held  had  descended  to  the  ground. 
The  wind  had  yet  again  increased.  His 
own  tree  showed  that.  It  no  longer  swayed 
or  bent  over  and  back.  Instead,  it  remained 
practically  stationary,  curved  in  a  rigid 
angle  from  the  wind  and  merely  vibrating. 


THE   HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI  31 

But  the  vibration  was  sickening.  It  was 
like  that  of  a  tuning-fork  or  the  tongue  of 
a  jew's-harp.  It  was  the  rapidity  of  the 
vibration  that  made  it  so  bad.  Even 
though  its  roots  held,  it  could  not  stand 
the  strain  for  long.  Something  would  have 
to  break. 

Ah,  there  was  one  that  had  gone.  He  had 
not  seen  it  go,  but  there  it  stood,  the  rem 
nant,  broken  off  half-way  up  the  trunk. 
One  did  not  know  what  happened  unless 
he  saw  it.  The  mere  crashing  of  trees 
and  wails  of  human  despair  occupied  no 
place  in  that  mighty  volume  of  sound. 
He  chanced  to  be  looking  in  Captain 
Lynch's  direction  when  it  happened.  He 
saw  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  half-way  up, 
splinter  and  part  without  noise.  The  head 
of  the  tree,  with  three  sailors  of  the  Aorai 
and  the  old  captain,  sailed  off  over  the 
lagoon.  It  did  not  fall  to  the  ground,  but 
drove  through  the  air  like  a  piece  of  chaff. 
For  a  hundred  yards  he  followed  its  flight, 
when  it  struck  the  water.  He  strained  his 


32  THE   HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

eyes,  and  was  sure  that  he  saw  Captain 
Lynch  wave  farewell. 

Raoul  did  not  wait  for  anything  more. 
He  touched  the  native  and  made  signs  to 
descend  to  the  ground.  The  man  was 
willing,  but  his  women  were  paralyzed 
from  terror,  and  he  elected  to  remain  with 
them.  Raoul  passed  his  rope  around  the 
tree  and  slid  down.  A  rush  of  salt  water 
went  over  his  head.  He  held  his  breath 
and  clung  desperately  to  the  rope.  The 
water  subsided,  and  in  the  shelter  of  the 
trunk  he  breathed  once  more.  He  fastened 
the  rope  more  securely,  and  then  was  put 
under  by  another  sea.  One  of  the  women 
slid  down  and  joined  him,  the  native  remain 
ing  by  the  other  woman,  the  two  children, 
and  the  cat. 

The  supercargo  had  noticed  how  the 
groups  clinging  at  the  bases  of  the  other 
trees  continually  diminished.  Now  he  saw 
the  process  work  out  alongside  him.  It 
required  all  his  strength  to  hold  on,  and  the 
woman  who  had  joined  him  was  growing 


THE  HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI  33 

weaker.  Each  time  he  emerged  from  a 
sea  he  was  surprised  to  find  himself  still 
there,  and  next,  surprised  to  find  the  woman 
still  there.  At  last,  he  emerged  to  find 
himself  alone.  He  looked  up.  The  top 
of  the  tree  had  gone  as  well.  At  half  its 
original  height,  a  splintered  end  vibrated. 
He  was  safe.  The  roots  still  held,  while 
the  tree  had  been  shorn  of  its  windage. 
He  began  to  climb  up.  He  was  so  weak 
that  he  went  slowly,  and  sea  after  sea 
caught  him  before  he  was  above  them. 
Then  he  tied  himself  to  the  trunk  and 
stiffened  his  soul  to  face  the  night  and  he 
knew  not  what. 

He  felt  very  lonely  in  the  darkness.  At 
times  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  the  end 
of  the  world  and  that  he  was  the  last  one 
left  alive.  Still  the  wind  increased.  Hour 
after  hour  it  increased.  By  what  he  cal 
culated  was  eleven  o'clock,  the  wind  had 
become  unbelievable.  [  It  was  a  horrible, 
monstrous  thing,  a  screaming  fury,  a  wall 
that  smote  and  passed  on  but  that  con- 


34  THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

tinued  to  smite  and  pass  on  —  a  wall  with 
out  end.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had 
become  light  and  ethereal ;  that  it  was  he 
that  was  in  motion ;  that  he  was  being 
driven  with  inconceivable  velocity  through 
unending  solidness.  The  wind  was  no 
longer  air  in  motion.  It  had  become  sub 
stantial  as  water  or  quicksilver.  He  had 
a  feeling  that  he  could  reach  into  it  and  tear 
it  out  in  chunks  as  one  might  do  with  the 
meat  in  the  carcass  of  a  steer;  that  he 
could  seize  hold  of  the  wind  and  hang  on 
to  it  as  a  man  might  hang  on  to  the  face 
of  a  cliff. 

The  wind  strangled  him.  He  could  not 
face  it  and  breathe,  for  it  rushed  in  through 
his  mouth  and  nostrils,  distending  his  lungs 
like  bladders.  At  such  moments  it  seemed 
to  him  that  his  body  was  being  packed  and 
swollen  with  solid  earth.  Only  by  pressing 
his  lips  to  the  trunk  of  the  tree  could  he 
breathe.  Also,  the  ceaseless  impact  of  the 
wind  exhausted  him.  Body  and  brain  be 
came  wearied.  He  no  longer  observed, 


THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  35 

no  longer  thought,  and  was  but  semicon 
scious.  One  idea  constituted  his  conscious 
ness  :  So  this  was  a  hurricane.  That  one 
idea  persisted  irregularly.  It  was  like  a 
feeble  flame  that  flickered  occasionally. 
From  a  state  of  stupor  he  would  return  to 
it  —  So  this  was  a  hurricane.  Then  he 
would  go  off  into  another  stupor. 

The  height  of  the  hurricane  endured  from 
eleven  at  night  till  three  in  the  morning, 
and  it  was  at  eleven  that  the  tree  in  which 
clung  Mapuhi  and  his  women  snapped  off. 
Mapuhi  rose  to  the  surface  of  the  lagoon, 
still  clutching  his  daughter  Ngakura.  Only 
a  South  Sea  islander  could  have  lived  in 
such  a  driving  smother.  The  pandanus- 
tree,  to  which  he  attached  himself,  turned 
over  and  over  in  the  froth  and  churn ;  and 
it  was  only  by  holding  on  at  times  and  wait 
ing,  and  at  other  times  shifting  his  grips 
rapidly,  that  he  was  able  to  get  his  head 
and  Ngakura's  to  the  surface  at  intervals 
sufficiently  near  together  to  keep  the  breath 
in  them.  But  the  air  was  mostly  water, 


36  THE   HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI 

what  with  flying  spray  and  sheeted  rain 
that  poured  along  at  right  angles  to  the 
perpendicular. 

It  was  ten  miles  across  the  lagoon  to 
the  farther  ring  of  sand.  Here,  tossing 
tree-trunks,  timbers,  wrecks  of  cutters, 
and  wreckage  of  houses,  killed  nine  out  of 
ten  of  the  miserable  beings  who  survived 
the  passage  of  the  lagoon.  Half-drowned, 
exhausted,  they  were  hurled  into  this  mad 
mortar  of  the  elements  and  battered  into 
formless  flesh.  But  Mapuhi  was  fortunate. 
His  chance  was  the  one  in  ten ;  it  fell  to 
him  by  the  freakage  of  fate.  He  emerged 
upon  the  sand,  bleeding  from  a  score  of 
wounds.  Ngakura's  left  arm  was  broken ; 
the  fingers  of  her  right  hand  were  crushed ; 
and  cheek  and  forehead  were  laid  open 
to  the  bone.  He  clutched  a  tree  that  yet 
stood,  and  clung  on,  holding  the  girl  and 
sobbing  for  air,  while  the  waters  of  the 
lagoon  washed  by  knee-high  and  at  times 
waist-high. 

At  three  in  the  morning  the  backbone 


THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  37 

of  the  hurricane  broke.  By  five  no  more 
than  a  stiff  breeze  was  blowing.  And  by 
six  it  was  dead  calm  and  the  sun  was  shin 
ing.  The  sea  had  gone  down.  On  the 
yet  restless  edge  of  the  lagoon,  Mapuhi 
saw  the  broken  bodies  of  those  that  had 
failed  in  the  landing.  Undoubtedly  Tefara 
and  Nauri  were  among  them.  He  went 
along  the  beach  examining  them,  and  came 
upon  his  wife,  lying  half  in  and  half  out 
of  the  water.  He  sat  down  and  wept, 
making  harsh  animal-noises  after  the  manner 
of  primitive  grief.  Then  she  stirred  un 
easily,  and  groaned.  He  looked  more 
closely.  .  Not  only  was  she  alive,  but  she 
was  uninjured.  She  was  merely  sleeping. 
Hers  also  had  been  the  one  chance  in  ten. 

Of  the  twelve  hundred  alive  the  night 
before  but  three  hundred  remained.  The 
Mormon  missionary  and  a  gendarme  made 
the  census.  The  lagoon  was  cluttered  with 
corpses.  Not  a  house  nor  a  hut  was  stand 
ing.  In  the  whole  atoll  not  two  stones 
remained  one  upon  another.  One  in  fifty 


38  THE   HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

of  the  cocoanut  palms  still  stood,  and  they 
were  wrecks,  while  on  not  one  of  them  re 
mained  a  single  nut.  There  was  no  fresh 
water.  The  shallow  wells  that  caught  the 
surface  seepage  of  the  rain  were  filled  with 
salt.  Out  of  the  lagoon  a  few  soaked  bags 
of  flour  were  recovered.  The  survivors 
cut  the  hearts  out  of  the  fallen  cocoanut 
trees  and  ate  them.  Here  and  there  they 
crawled  into  tiny  hutches,  made  by  hollow 
ing  out  the  sand  and  covering  over  with 
fragments  of  metal  roofing.  The  mission 
ary  made  a  crude  still,  but  he  could  not 
distill  water  for  three  hundred  persons.  By 
the  end  of  the  second  day,  Raoul,  taking 
a  bath  in  the  lagoon,  discovered  that  his 
thirst  was  somewhat  relieved.  He  cried 
out  the  news,  and  thereupon  three  hundred 
men,  women,  and  children  could  have  been 
seen,  standing  up  to  their  necks  in  the  lagoon 
and  trying  to  drink  water  in  through  their 
skins.  Their  dead  floated  about  them,  or 
were  stepped  upon  where  they  still  lay  upon 
the  bottom.  On  the  third  day  the  people 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  39 

buried   their  dead   and   sat   down  to  wait 
for  the  rescue  steamers. 

In  the  meantime,  Nauri,  torn  from  her 
family  by  the  hurricane,  had  been  swept 
away  on  an  adventure  of  her  own.  Cling 
ing  to  a  rough  plank  that  wounded  and 
bruised  her  and  that  filled  her  body  with 
splinters,  she  was  thrown  clear  over  the 
atoll  and  carried  away  to  sea.  Here,  under 
the  amazing  buffets  of  mountains  of  water, 
she  lost  her  plank.  She  was  an  old  woman 
nearly  sixty ;  but  she  was  Paumotan- 
born,  and  she  had  never  been  out  of  sight 
of  the  sea  in  her  life.  Swimming  in  the 
darkness,  strangling,  suffocating,  fighting 
for  air,  she  was  struck  a  heavy  blow  on  the 
shoulder  by  a  cocoanut.  On  the  instant 
her  plan  was  formed,  and  she  seized  the 
nut.  In  the  next  hour  she  captured  seven 
more.  Tied  together,  they  formed  a  life 
buoy  that  preserved  her  life  while  at  the 
same  time  it  threatened  to  pound  her  to  a 
jelly.  She  was  a  fat  woman,  and  she 
bruised  easily ;  but  she  had  had  experience 


40  THE  HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

of  hurricanes,  and,  while  she  prayed  to  her 
shark  god  for  protection  from  sharks,  she 
waited  for  the  wind  to  break.  But  at  three 
o'clock  she  was  in  such  a  stupor  that  she 
did  not  know.  Nor  did  she  know  at  six 
o'clock  when  the  dead  calm  settled  down. 
She  was  shocked  into  consciousness  when 
she  was  thrown  upon  the  sand.  She  dug 
in  with  raw  and  bleeding  hands  and  feet 
and  clawed  against  the  backwash  until 
she  was  beyond  the  reach  of  the  waves. 

She  knew  where  she  was.  This  land 
could  be  no  other  than  the  tiny  islet  of 
Takokota.  It  had  no  lagoon.  No  one 
lived  upon  it.  Hikueru  was  fifteen  miles 
away.  She  could  not  see  Hikueru,  but 
she  knew  that  it  lay  to  the  south.  The 
days  went  by,  and  she  lived  on  the  cocoa- 
nuts  that  had  kept  her  afloat.  They  sup 
plied  her  with  drinking  water  and  with 
food.  But  she  did  not  drink  all  she  wanted, 
nor  eat  all  she  wanted.  Rescue  was  prob 
lematical.  She  saw  the  smoke  of  the  rescue 
steamers  on  the  horizon,  but  what  steamer 


THE  HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI  41 

could  be  expected  to  come  to  lonely,  unin 
habited  Takokota  ? 

From  tjie  first  she  was  tormented  by 
corpses.  The  sea  persisted  in  flinging  them 
upon  her  bit  of  sand,  and  she  persisted, 
until  her  strength  failed,  in  thrusting  them 
back  into  the  sea  where  the  sharks  tore 
at  them  and  devoured  them.  When  her 
strength  failed,  the  bodies  festooned  her 
beach  with  ghastly  horror,  and  she  with 
drew  from  them  as  far  as  she  could,  which 
was  not  far. 

By  the  tenth  day  her  last  cocoanut  was 
gone,  and  she  was  shrivelling  from  thirst. 
She  dragged  herself  along  the  sand,  looking 
for  cocoanuts.  It  was  strange  that  so 
many  bodies  floated  up,  and  no  nuts. 
Surely,  there  were  more  cocoanuts  afloat 
than  dead  men  !  She  gave  up  at  last,  and 
lay  exhausted.  The  end  had  come.  Noth 
ing  remained  but  to  wait  for  death. 

Coming  out  of  a  stupor,  she  became  slowly 
aware  that  she  was  gazing  at  a  patch  of 
sandy-red  hair  on  the  head  of  a  corpse. 


42  THE  HOUSE   OF   MAPUHI 

The  sea  flung  the  body  toward  her,  then 
drew  it  back.  It  turned  over,  and  she  saw 
that  it  had  no  face.  Yet  there  was  some 
thing  familiar  about  that  patch  of  sandy- 
red  hair.  An  hour  passed.  She  did  not 
exert  herself  to  make  the  identification. 
She  was  waiting  to  die,  and  it  mattered 
little  to  her  what  man  that  thing  of  horror 
once  might  have  been. 

But  at  the  end  of  the  hour  she  sat  up 
slowly  and  stared  at  the  corpse.  An  un 
usually  large  wave  had  thrown  it  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  lesser  waves.  Yes,  she 
was  right;  that  patch  of  red  hair  could 
belong  to  but  one  man  in  the  Paumotus. 
It  was  Levy,  the  German  Jew,  the  man  who 
had  bought  the  pearl  and  carried  it  away 
on  the  Hira.  Well,  one  thing  was  evident : 
the  Hira  had  been  lost.  The  pearl-buyer's 
god  of  fishermen  and  thieves  had  gone 
back  on  him. 

She  crawled  down  to  the  dead  man.  His 
shirt  had  been  torn  away,  and  she  could 
see  the  leather  money-belt  about  his  waist. 


THE  HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  43 

She  held  her  breath  and  tugged  at  the 
buckles.  They  gave  easier  than  she  had 
expected,  and  she  crawled  hurriedly  away 
across  the  sand,  dragging  the  belt  after  her. 
Pocket  after  pocket  she  unbuckled  in  the 
belt  and  found  empty.  Where  could  he 
have  put  it  ?  In  the  last  pocket  of  all  she 
found  it,  the  first  and  only  pearl  he  had 
bought  on  the  voyage.  She  crawled  a  few 
feet  farther,  to  escape  the  pestilence  of  the 
belt,  and  examined  the  pearl.  It  was  the 
one  Mapuhi  had  found  and  been  robbed  of 
by  Toriki.  She  weighed  it  in  her  hand  and 
rolled  it  back  and  forth  caressingly.  But 
in  it  she  saw  no  intrinsic  beauty.  What 
she  did  see  was  the  house  Mapuhi  and 
Tefara  and  she  had  builded  so  carefully 
in  their  minds.  Each  time  she  looked  at 
the  pearl  she  saw  the  house  in  all  its  details, 
including  the  octagon-drop-clock  on  the 
wall.  That  was  something  to  live  for. 

She  tore  a  strip  from  her  ahu  and  tied 
the  pearl  securely  about  her  neck.  Then 
she  went  on  along  the  beach,  panting  and 


44  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

groaning,  but  resolutely  seeking  for  cocoa- 
nuts.  Quickly  she  found  one,  and,  as  she 
glanced  around,  a  second.  She  broke  one, 
drinking  its  water,  which  was  mildewy, 
and  eating  the  last  particle  of  the  meat. 
A  little  later  she  found  a  shattered  dug 
out.  Its  outrigger  was  gone,  but  she  was 
hopeful,  and,  before  the  day  was  out,  she 
found  the  outrigger.  Every  find  was  an 
augury.  The  pearl  was  a  talisman.  Late 
in  the  afternoon  she  saw  a  wooden  box 
floating  low  in  the  water.  When  she 
dragged  it  out  on  the  beach  its  contents 
rattled,  and  inside  she  found  ten  tins  of 
salmon.  She  opened  one  by  hammering 
it  on  the  canoe.  When  a  leak  was  started, 
she  drained  the  tin.  After  that  she  spent 
several  hours  in  extracting  the  salmon, 
hammering  and  squeezing  it  out  a  morsel 
at  a  time. 

Eight  days  longer  she  waited  for  rescue. 
In  the  meantime  she  fastened  the  outrigger 
back  on  the  canoe,  using  for  lashings  all 
the  cocoa  nut-fib  re  she  could  find,  and  also 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  45 

what  remained  of  her  ahu.  The  canoe 
was  badly  cracked,  and  she  could  not  make 
it  water-tight;  but  a  calabash  made  from 
a  cocoanut  she  stored  on  board  for  a  bailer. 
She  was  hard  put  for  a  paddle.  With  a  piece 
of  tin  she  sawed  off  all  her  hair  close  to  the 
scalp.  Out  of  the  hair  she  braided  a  cord ; 
and  by  means  of  the  cord  she  lashed  a  three- 
foot  piece  of  broom-handle  to  a  board  from 
the  salmon  case.  She  gnawed  wedges  with 
her  teeth  and  with  them  wedged  the  lashing. 
On  the  eighteenth  day,  at  midnight,  she 
launched  the  canoe  through  the  surf  and 
started  back  for  Hikueru.  She  was  an  old 
woman.  Hardship  had  stripped  her  fat 
from  her  till  scarcely  more  than  bones  and 
skin  and  a  few  stringy  muscles  remained. 
The  canoe  was  large  and  should  have  been 
paddled  by  three  strong  men.  But  she 
did  it  alone,  with  a  make-shift  paddle. 
Also,  the  canoe  leaked  badly,  and  one-third 
of  her  time  was  devoted  to  bailing.  By 
clear  daylight  she  looked  vainly  for  Hi 
kueru.  Astern,  Takokota  had  sunk  be- 


46  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

neath  the  sea-rim.  The  sun  blazed  down 
on  her  nakedness,  compelling  her  body 
to  surrender  its  moisture.  Two  tins  of 
salmon  were  left,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
day  she  battered  holes  in  them  and  drained 
the  liquid.  She  had  no  time  to  waste  in 
extracting  the  meat.  A  current  was  setting 
to  the  westward,  she  made  westing  whether 
she  made  southing  or  not. 

In  the  early  afternoon,  standing  upright 
in  the  canoe,  she  sighted  Hikueru.  Its 
wealth  of  cocoanut  palms  was  gone.  Only 
here  and  there,  at  wide  intervals,  could 
she  see  the  ragged  remnants  of  trees.  The 
sight  cheered  her.  She  was  nearer  than  she 
had  thought.  The  current  was  setting 
her  to  the  westward.  She  bore  up  against 
it  and  paddled  on.  The  wedges  in  the 
paddle-lashing  worked  loose,  and  she  lost 
much  time,  at  frequent  intervals,  in  driving 
them  tight.  Then  there  was  the  bailing. 
One  hour  in  three  she  had  to  cease  paddling 
in  order  to  bail.  And  all  the  time  she 
drifted  to  the  westward. 


THE   HOUSE  OF   MAPUHI  47 

By  sunset  Hikueru  bore  southeast  from 
her,  three  miles  away.  There  was  a  full 
moon,  and  by  eight  o'clock  the  land  was 
due  east  and  two  miles  away.  She  struggled 
on  for  another  hour,  but  the  land  was  as 
far  away  as  ever.  She  was  in  the  main 
grip  of  the  current;  the  canoe  was  too 
large;  the  paddle  was  too  inadequate; 
and  too  much  of  her  time  and  strength 
was  wasted  in  bailing.  Besides,  she  was 
very  weak  and  growing  weaker.  Despite 
her  efforts,  the  canoe  was  drifting  off  to 
the  westward. 

She  breathed  a  prayer  to  her  shark  god, 
slipped  over  the  side,  and  began  to  swim. 
She  was  actually  refreshed  by  the  water, 
and  quickly  left  the  canoe  astern.  At 
the  end  of  an  hour  the  land  was  perceptibly 
nearer.  Then  came  her  fright.  Right 
before  her  eyes,  not  twenty  feet  away,  a 
large  fin  cut  the  water.  She  swam  steadily 
toward  it,  and  slowly  it  glided  away,  curv 
ing  off  toward  the  right  and  circling  around 
her.  She  kept  her  eyes  on  the  fin  and  swam 


48  THE   HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

on.  When  the  fin  disappeared,  she  lay 
face  downward  on  the  water  and  watched. 
When  the  fin  reappeared  she  resumed  her 
swimming.  The  monster  was  lazy --she 
could  see  that.  Without  doubt  he  had  been 
well  fed  since  the  hurricane.  Had  he  been 
very  hungry,  she  knew  he  would  not  have 
hesitated  from  making  a  dash  for  her.  He 
was  fifteen  feet  long,  and  one  bite,  she 
knew,  could  cut  her  in  half. 

But  she  did  not  have  any  time  to  waste 
on  him.  W7hether  she  swam  or  not,  the 
current  drew  away  from  the  land  just  the 
same.  A  half-hour  went  by,  and  the  shark 
began  to  grow  bolder.  Seeing  no  harm  in 
her  he  drew  closer,  in  narrowing  circles, 
cocking  his  eyes  at  her  impudently  as  he 
slid  past.  Sooner  or  later,  she  knew  well 
enough,  he  would  get  up  sufficient  courage 
to  dash  at  her.  She  resolved  to  play 
first.  It  was  a  desperate  act  she  medi 
tated.  She  was  an  old  woman,  alone  in 
the  sea  and  weak  from  starvation  and  hard 
ship  ;  and  yet  she,  in  the  face  of  this  sea- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  49 

tiger,  must  anticipate  his  dash  by  herself 
dashing  at  him,  She  swam  on,  waiting 
her  chance.  At  last  he  passed  languidly 
by,  barely  eight  feet  away.  She  rushed  at 
him  suddenly,  feigning  that  she  was  attack 
ing  him.  He  gave  a  wild  flirt  of  his  tail 
as  he  fled  away,  and  his  sandpaper  hide, 
striking  her,  took  off  her  skin  from  elbow 
to  shoulder.  He  swam  rapidly,  in  a  widen 
ing  circle,  and  at  last  disappeared. 

In  the  hole  in  the  sand,  covered  over  by 
fragments  of  metal  roofing,  Mapuhi  and 
Tefara  lay  disputing. 

"If  you  had  done  as  I  said,"  charged 
Tefara,  for  the  thousandth  time,  "and  hid 
den  the  pearl  and  told  no  one,  you  would 
have  it  now." 

"But  Huru-Huru  was  with  me  when  I 
opened  the  shell  —  have  I  not  told  you 
so  times  and  times  and  times  without 
end?" 

"And  now  we  shall  have  no  house. 
Raoul  told  me  to-day  that  if  you  had  not 
sold  the  pearl  to  Toriki  — " 


50  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

"I  did  not  sell  it.     Toriki  robbed  me." 

" —  that  if  you  had  not  sold  the  pearl, 
he  would  give  you  five  thousand  French 
dollars,  which  is  ten  thousand  Chili." 

"He  has  been  talking  to  his  mother," 
Mapuhi  explained.  "She  has  an  eye  for 
a  pearl." 

"And  now  the  pearl  is  lost,"  Tefara  com 
plained. 

"It  paid  my  debt  with  Toriki.  That  is 
twelve  hundred  I  have  made,  anyway." 

"Toriki  is  dead,"  she  cried.  "They  have 
heard  no  word  of  his  schooner.  She  was 
lost  along  with  the  Aorai  and  the  Hira. 
Will  Toriki  pay  you  the  three  hundred 
credit  he  promised  ?  No,  because  Toriki 
is  dead.  And  had  you  found  no  pearl, 
would  you  to-day  owe  Toriki  the  twelve 
hundred  ?  No,  because  Toriki  is  dead, 
and  you  cannot  pay  dead  men." 

"But  Levy  did  not  pay  Toriki,"  Mapuhi 
said.  "He  gave  him  a  piece  of  paper  that 
was  good  for  the  money  in  Papeete ;  and 
now  Levy  is  dead  and  cannot  pay;  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI  51 

Toriki  is  dead  and  the  paper  lost  with  him, 
and  the  pearl  is  lost  with  Levy.  You  are 
right,  Tefara.  I  have  lost  the  pearl,  and 
got  nothing  for  it.  Now  let  us  sleep." 

He  held  up  his  hand  suddenly  and  lis 
tened.  From  without  came  a  noise,  as  of 
one  who  breathed  heavily  and  with  pain. 
A  hand  fumbled  against  the  mat  that  served 
for  a  door. 

"Who  is  there  ?"  Mapuhi  cried. 

"Nauri,"  came  the  answer.  "Can  you 
tell  me  where  is  my  son,  Mapuhi  ?" 

Tefara  screamed  and  gripped  her  hus 
band's  arm. 

"A  ghost !"  she  chattered.     "A  ghost !" 

Mapuhi's  face  was  a  ghastly  yellow. 
He  clung  weakly  to  his  wife. 

"Good  woman,"  he  said  in  faltering 
tones,  striving  to  disguise  his  voice,  "I 
know  your  son  well.  He  is  living  on  the 
east  side  of  the  lagoon." 

From  without  came  the  sound  of  a  sigh. 
Mapuhi  began  to  feel  elated.  He  had  fooled 
the  ghost. 


52  THE  HOUSE  OF  MAPUHI 

"But  where  do  you  come  from,  old 
woman  ?"  he  asked. 

"From  the  sea,"  was  the  dejected  answer. 

"I  knew  it!  I  knew  it!"  screamed 
Tefara,  rocking  to  and  fro. 

"Since  when  has  Tefara  bedded  in  a 
strange  house  ?"  came  Nauri's  voice  through 
the  matting. 

Mapuhi  looked  fear  and  reproach  at  his 
wife.  It  was  her  voice  that  had  betrayed 
them. 

"And  since  when  has  Mapuhi,  my  son, 
denied  his  old  mother?"  the  voice  went 
on. 

"No,  no,  I  have  not  —  Mapuhi  has  not 
denied  you,"  he  cried.  "I  am  not  Mapuhi. 
He  is  on  the  east  end  of  the  lagoon,  I  tell 
you." 

Ngakura  sat  up  in  bed  and  began  to 
cry.  The  matting  started  to  shake. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  Mapuhi  de 
manded. 

"I  am  coming  in,"  said  the  voice  of 
Nauri. 


THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  53 

One  end  of  the  matting  lifted.  Tefara 
tried  to  dive  under  the  blankets,  but 
Mapuhi  held  on  to  her.  He  had  to  hold 
on  to  something.  Together,  struggling  with 
each  other,  with  shivering  bodies  and  chat 
tering  teeth,  they  gazed  with  protruding 
eyes  at  the  lifting  mat.  They  saw  Nauri, 
dripping  with  sea-water,  without  her  ahu, 
creep  in.  They  rolled  over  backward  from 
her  and  fought  for  Ngakura's  blanket  with 
which  to  cover  their  heads. 

"You  might  give  your  old  mother  a 
drink  of  water,"  the  ghost  said  plaintively. 

"Give  her  a  drink  of  water,"  Tefara 
commanded  in  a  shaking  voice. 

"Give  her  a  drink  of  water,"  Mapuhi 
passed  on  the  command  to  Ngakura. 

And  together  they  kicked  out  Ngakura 
from  under  the  blanket.  A  minute  later, 
peeping,  Mapuhi  saw  the  ghost  drinking. 
When  it  reached  out  a  shaking  hand  and 
laid  it  on  his,  he  felt  the  weight  of  it  and  was 
convinced  that  it  was  no  ghost.  Then  he 
emerged,  dragging  Tefara  after  him,  and 


54  THE   HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI 

in  a  few  minutes  all  were  listening  to  Nauri's 
tale.  And  when  she  told  of  Levy,  and 
dropped  the  pearl  into  Tefara's  hand,  even 
she  was  reconciled  to  the  reality  of  her 
mother-in-law. 

"In  the  morning,"  said  Tefara,  "you 
will  sell  the  pearl  to  Raoul  for  five  thousand 
French." 

"The  house  ?"  objected  Nauri. 

"He  will  build  the  house,"  Tefara  an 
swered.  "He  says  it  will  cost  four  thousand 
French.  Also  will  he  give  one  thousand 
French  in  credit,  which  is  two  thousand 
Chili." 

"And  it  will  be  six  fathoms  long?" 
Nauri  queried. 

"Ay,"  answered  Mapuhi,  "six  fathoms." 

"And  in  the  middle  room  will  be  the 
octagon-drop-clock  ?" 

"Ay,  and  the  round  table  as  well." 

"Then  give  me  something  to  eat,  for  I 
am  hungry,"  said  Nauri,  complacently. 
"And  after  that  we  will  sleep,  for  I  am 
weary.  And  to-morrow  we  will  have  more 


THE  HOUSE   OF  MAPUHI  55 

talk  about  the  house  before  we  sell  the  pearl. 
It  will  be  better  if  we  take  the  thousand 
French  in  cash.  Money  is  ever  better 
than  credit  in  buying  goods  from  the 
traders." 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

IT  was  in  the  early  days  in  Fiji,  when 
John  Starhurst  arose  in  the  mission- 
house  at  Rewa  Village  and  announced 
his  intention  of  carrying  the  Gospel  through 
out  all  Viti  Levu.  Now  Viti  Levu  means 
the  "  Great  Land,"  it  being  the  largest 
island  in  a  group  composed  of  many  large 
islands,  to  say  nothing  of  hundreds  of  small 
ones.  Here  and  there  on  the  coasts,  living 
by  most  precarious  tenure,  was  a  sprink 
ling  of  missionaries,  traders,  beche-de-mer 
fishers,  and  whaleship  deserters.  The 
smoke  of  the  hot  ovens  arose  under  their 
windows,  and  the  bodies  of  the  slain  were 
dragged  by  their  doors  on  the  way  to  the 
feasting. 

The  Lotu,  or  the  Worship,  was  progress 
ing  slowly,  and,  often,  in  crablike  fash 
ion.  Chiefs,  who  announced  themselves 

59 


60  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

Christians  and  were  welcomed  into  the 
body  of  the  chapel,  had  a  distressing  habit 
of  backsliding  in  order  to  partake  of  the 
flesh  of  some  favorite  enemy.  Eat  or 
be  eaten  had  been  the  law  of  the  land ; 
and  eat  or  be  eaten  promised  to  remain 
the  law  of  the  land  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
There  were  chiefs,  such  as  Tanoa,  Tuivei- 
koso,  and  Tuikilakila,  who  had  literally 
eaten  hundreds  of  their  fellow-men.  But 
among  these  gluttons  Ra  Undreundre 
ranked  highest.  Ra  Undreundre  lived  at 
Takiraki.  He  kept  a  register  of  his  gusta 
tory  exploits.  A  row  of  stones  outside 
his  house  marked  the  bodies  he  had  eaten. 
This  row  was  two  hundred  and  thirty 
paces  long,  and  the  stones  in  it  numbered 
eight  hundred  and  seventy-two.  Each 
stone  represented  a  body.  The  row  of 
stones  might  have  been  longer,  had  not 
Ra  Undreundre  unfortunately  received  a 
spear  in  the  small  of  his  back  in  a  bush 
skirmish  on  Somo  Somo  and  been  served 
up  on  the  table  of  Naungavuli,  whose  me- 


THE   WHALE  TOOTH  61 

diocre  string  of  stones  numbered  only  forty- 
eight. 

The  hard-worked,  fever-stricken  mission 
aries  stuck  doggedly  to  their  task,  at  times 
despairing,  and  looking  forward  for  some 
special  manifestation,  some  outburst  of 
Pentecostal  fire  that  would  bring  a  glorious 
harvest  of  souls.  But  cannibal  Fiji  had 
remained  obdurate.  The  frizzle-headed 
man-eaters  were  loath  to  leave  their  flesh- 
pots  so  long  as  the  harvest  of  human  car 
cases  was  plentiful.  Sometimes,  when  the 
harvest  was  too  plentiful,  they  imposed 
on  the  missionaries  by  letting  the  word 
slip  out  that  on  such  a  day  there  would  be 
a  killing  and  a  barbecue.  Promptly  the 
missionaries  would  buy  the  lives  of  the 
victims  with  stick  tobacco,  fathoms  of 
calico,  and  quarts  of  trade-beads.  Nathe- 
less  the  chiefs  drove  a  handsome  trade  in 
thus  disposing  of  their  surplus  live  meat. 
Also,  they  could  always  go  out  and  catch 
more. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  John  Star- 


62  THE   WHALE  TOOTH 

hurst  proclaimed  that  he  would  carry  the 
Gospel  from  coast  to  coast  of  the  Great 
Land,  and  that  he  would  begin  by  pene 
trating  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  the  head 
waters  of  the  Rewa  River.  His  words  were 
received  with  consternation. 

The  native  teachers  wept  softly.  His 
two  fellow-missionaries  strove  to  dissuade 
him.  The  King  of  Rewa  warned  him  that 
the  mountain  dwellers  would  surely  kai- 
kai  him  --  kai-kai  meaning  "to  eat"  — 
and  that  he,  the  King  of  Rewa,  having 
become  Lotu,  would  be  put  to  the  necessity 
of  going  to  war  with  the  mountain  dwellers. 
That  he  could  not  conquer  them  he  was 
perfectly  aware.  That  they  might  come 
down  the  river  and  sack  Rewa  Village  he 
was  likewise  perfectly  aware.  But  what 
was  he  to  do  ?  If  John  Starhurst  persisted 
in  going  out  and  being  eaten,  there  would 
be  a  war  that  would  cost  hundreds  of 
lives. 

Later  in  the  day  a  deputation  of  Rewa 
chiefs  waited  upon  John  Starhurst.  He 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH  63 

heard  them  patiently,  and  argued  patiently 
with  them,  though  he  abated  not.  a  whit 
from  his  purpose.  To  his  fellow-mission 
aries  he  explained  that  he  was  not  bent 
upon  martyrdom ;  that  the  call  had  come 
for  him  to  carry  the  Gospel  into  Viti  Levu, 
and  that  he  was  merely  obeying  the  Lord's 
wish. 

To  the  traders,  who  came  and  objected 
most  strenuously  of  all,  he  said:  "Your 
objections  are  valueless.  They  consist 
merely  of  the  damage  that  may  be  done 
your  businesses.  You  are  interested  in 
making  money,  but  I  am  interested  in 
saving  souls.  The  heathen  of  this  dark 
land  must  be  saved." 

John  Starhurst  was  not  a  fanatic.  He 
would  have  been  the  first  man  to  deny  the 
imputation.  He  was  eminently  sane  and 
practical.  He  was  sure  that  his  mission 
would  result  in  good,  and  he  had  private 
visions  of  igniting  the  Pentecostal  spark 
in  the  souls  of  the  mountaineers  and  of 
inaugurating  a  revival  that  would  sweep 


64  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

down  out  of  the  mountains  and  across  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  Great  Land  from 
sea  to  sea  and  to  the  isles  in  the  midst  of 
the  sea.  There  were  no  wild  lights  in  his 
mild  gray  eyes,  but  only  calm  resolution 
and  an  unfaltering  trust  in  the  Higher 
Power  that  was  guiding  him. 

One  man  only  he  found  who  approved 
of  his  project,  and  that  was  Ra  Vatu,  who 
secretly  encouraged  him  and  offered  to 
lend  him  guides  to  the  first  foothills.  John 
Starhurst,  in  turn,  was  greatly  pleased  by 
Ra  Vatu's  conduct.  From  an  incorrigible 
heathen,  with  a  heart  as  black  as  his  prac 
tices,  Ra  Vatu  was  beginning  to  emanate 
light.  He  even  spoke  of  becoming  Lotu. 
True,  three  years  before  he  had  expressed 
a  similar  intention,  and  would  have  entered 
the  church  had  not  John  Starhurst  entered 
objection  to  his  bringing  his  four  wives 
along  with  him.  Ra  Vatu  had  had  eco 
nomic  and  ethical  objections  to  monogamy. 
Besides,  the  missionary's  hair-splitting  ob 
jection  had  offended  him ;  and,  to  prove 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH  65 

that  he  was  a  free  agent  and  a  man  of 
honor,  he  had  swung  his  huge  war-club  over 
Starhurst's  head.  Starhurst  had  escaped 
by  rushing  in  under  the  club  and  holding 
on  to  him  until  help  arrived.  But  all  that 
was  now  forgiven  and  forgotten.  Ra  Vatu 
was  coming  into  the  church,  not  merely 
as  a  converted  heathen,  but  as  a  converted 
polygamist  as  well.  He  was  only  waiting, 
he  assured  Starhurst,  until  his  oldest  wife, 
who  was  very  sick,  should  die. 

rjohn  Starhurst  journeyed  up  the  slug 
gish  Rewa  in  one  of  Ra  Vatu's  canoes. 
This  canoe  was  to  carry  him  for  two  days, 
when,  the  head  of  navigation  reached,  it 
would  return.  Far  in  the  distance,  lifted 
into  the  sky,  could  be  seen  the  great  smoky 
mountains  that  marked  the  backbone  of 
the  Great  Land.  All  day  John  Starhurst 
gazed  at  them  with  eager  yearning. 

Sometimes  he  prayed  silently.     At  other 

times  he  was  joined  in  prayer  by  Narau, 

a  native  teacher,  who  for  seven  years  had 

been  Lotu,  ever  since  the  day  he  had  been 

r 


66  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

saved  from  the  hot  oven  by  Dr.  James 
Ellery  Brown  at  the  trifling  expense  of  one 
hundred  sticks  of  tobacco,  two  cotton 
blankets,  and  a  large  bottle  of  painkiller. 
At  the  last  moment,  after  twenty  hours  of 
solitary  supplication  and  prayer,  Narau's 
ears  had  heard  the  call  to  go  forth  with 
John  Starhurst  on  the  mission  to  the  moun 
tains. 

"Master,  I  will  surely  go  with  thee,"  he 
had  announced. 

John  Starhurst  had  hailed  him  with 
sober  delight.  Truly,  the  Lord  was  with 
him  thus  to  spur  on  so  broken-spirited  a 
creature  as  Narau. 

"I  am  indeed  without  spirit,  the  weakest 
of  the  Lord's  vessels,"  Narau  explained, 
the  first  day  in  the  canoe. 

"You  should  have  faith,  stronger  faith," 
the  missionary  chided  him. 

Another  canoe  journeyed  up  the  Rewa 
that  day.  But  it  journeyed  an  hour  astern, 
and  it  took  care  not  to  be  seen.  This 
canoe  was  also  the  property  of  Ra  Vatu. 


THE   WHALE   TOOTH  67 

In  it  was  Erirola,  Ra  Vatu's  first  cousin 
and  trusted  henchman ;  and  in  the  small 
basket  that  never  left  his  hand  was  a  whale 
tooth.  It  was  a  magnificent  tooth,  fully 
six  inches  long,  beautifully  proportioned, 
the  ivory  turned  yellow  and  purple  with 
age.  This  tooth  was  likewise  the  property 
of  Ra  Vatu  ;  and  in  Fiji,  when  such  a  tooth 
goes  forth,  things  usually  happen.  For  this 
is  the  virtue  of  the  whale  tooth  :  Whoever 
accepts  it  cannot  refuse  the  request  that 
may  accompany  it  or  follow  it.  The  re 
quest  may  be  anything  from  a  human  life 
to  a  tribal  alliance,  and  no  Fijian  is  §6 
dead  to  honor  as  to  deny  the  request 
when  once  the  tooth  has  been  accepted. 
Sometimes  the  request  hangs  fire,  or  the 
fulfilment  is  delayed,  with  untoward  con 
sequences. 

High  up  the  Rewa,  at  the  village  of  a 
chief,  Mongondro  by  name,  John  Star- 
hurst  rested  at  the  end  of  the  second  day 
of  the  journey.  In  the  morning,  attended 
by  Narau,  he  expected  to  start  on  foot  for 


68  THE   WHALE  TOOTH 

/  the  smoky  mountains  that  were  now  green 
and  velvety  with  nearness.  Mongondro 
was  a  sweet-tempered,  mild-mannered  little 
old  chief,  short-sighted  and  afflicted  with 
elephantiasis,  and  no  longer  inclined  toward 
the  turbulence  of  war.  He  received  the 
missionary  with  warm  hospitality,  gave 
him  food  from  his  own  table,  and  even 
discussed  religious  matters  with  him.  Mon 
gondro  was  of  an  inquiring  bent  of  mind, 
and  pleased  John  Starhurst  greatly  by 
asking  him  to  account  for  the  existence 
and  beginning  of  things.  When  the  mis 
sionary  had  finished  his  summary  of  the 
Creation  according  to  Genesis,  he  saw  that 
Mongondro  was  deeply  affected.  The  little 
old  chief  smoked  silently  for  some  time. 
Then  he  took  the  pipe  from  his  mouth 
and  shook  his  head  sadly.  -Jt 

"It  cannot  be,"  he  said.  "I,  Mon 
gondro,  in  my  youth,  was  a  good  workman 
with  the  adze.  Yet  three  months  did  it 
take  me  to  make  a  canoe  —  a  small  canoe, 
a  very  small  canoe.  And  you  say  that  all 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH  69 

this  land  and  water  was  made  by  one 
man—" 

"Nay,  was  made  by  one  God,  the  only 
true  God,"  the  missionary  interrupted. 

"It  is  the  same  thing,"  Mongondro  went 
on,  "that  all  the  land  and  all  the  water, 
the  trees,  the  fish,  and  bush  and  mountains, 
the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  were 
made  in  six  days  !  No,  no.  I  tell  you 
that  in  my  youth  I  was  an  able  man,  yet 
did  it  require  me  three  months  for  one 
small  canoe.  It  is  a  story  to  frighten 
children  with ;  but  no  man  can  believe  it." 

"I  am  a  man,"  the  missionary  said. 

"True,  you  are  a  man.  But  it  is  not 
given  to  my  dark  understanding  to  know 
what  you  believe." 

"I  tell  you,  I  do  believe  that  everything 
was  made  in  six  days." 

"So  you  say,  so  you  say,"  the  old  can 
nibal  murmured  soothingly. 

It  was  not  until  after  John  Starhurst 
and  Narau  had  gone  off  to  bed  that  Erirola 
crept  into  the  chief's  house,  and,  after 


yo  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

diplomatic  speech,  handed  the  whale  tooth 
to  Mongondro. 

The  old  chief  held  the  tooth  in  his  hands 
for  a  long  time.  It  was  a  beautiful  tooth, 
and  he  yearned  for  it.  Also,  he  divined 
the  request  that  must  accompany  it.  "No, 
no ;  whale  teeth  were  beautiful,"  and  his 
mouth  watered  for  it,  but  he  passed  it 
back  to  Erirola  with  many  apologies. 

In  the  early  dawn  John  Starhurst  was 
afoot,  striding  along  the  bush  trail  in  his 
big  leather  boots,  at  his  heels  the  faithful 
Narau,  himself  at  the  heels  of  a  naked 
guide  lent  him  by  Mongondro  to  show  the 
way  to  the  next  village,  which  was  reached 
by  midday.  Here  a  new  guide  showed  the 
way.  A  mile  in  the  rear  plodded  Erirola, 
the  whale  tooth  in  the  basket  slung  on  his 
shoulder.  For  two  days  more  he  brought 
up  the  missionary's  rear,  offering  the  tooth 
to  the  village  chiefs.  But  village  after 
village  refused  the  tooth.  It  followed  so 
quickly  the  missionary's  advent  that  they 


THE   WHALE  TOOTH  71 

divined  the  request  that  would  be  made, 
and  would  have  none  of  it. 

They  were  getting  deep  into  the  moun 
tains,  and  Erirola  took  a  secret  trail,  cut 
in  ahead  of  the  missionary,  and  reached 
the  stronghold  of  the  Buli  of  Gatoka.  Now 
the  Buli  was  unaware  of  John  Starhurst's 
imminent  arrival.  Also,  the  tooth  was 
beautiful  —  an  extraordinary  specimen, 
while  the  coloring  of  it  was  of  the  rarest 
order.  The  tooth  was  presented  publicly. 
The  Buli  of  Gatoka,  seated  on  his  best  mat, 
surrounded  by  his  chief  men,  three  busy 
fly-brushers  at  his  back,  deigned  to  receive 
from  the  hand  of  his  herald  the  whale 
tooth  presented  by  Ra  Vatu  and  carried 
into  the  mountains  by  his  cousin,  Erirola. 
A  clapping  of  hands  went  up  at  the  accepta 
tion  of  the  present,  the  assembled  headmen, 
heralds,  and  fly-brushers  crying  aloud  in 
chorus  : 

"A  !  woi !  woi !  woi !  A  !  woi !  woi  !  woi ! 
A  tabua  levu  !  woi !  woi  !  A  mudua,  mudua, 
mudua  !" 


72  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

"Soon  will  come  a  man,  a  white  man," 
Erirola  began,  after  the  proper  pause. 
"He  is  a  missionary  man,  and  he  will  come 
to-day.  Ra  Vatu  is  pleased  to  desire  his 
boots.  He  wishes  to  present  them  to  his 
good  friend,  Mongondro,  and  it  is  in  his 
mind  to  send  them  with  the  feet  along  in 
them,  for  Mongondro  is  an  old  man  and  his 
teeth  are  not  good.  Be  sure,  O  Buli,  that 
the  feet  go  along  in  the  boots.  As  for  the 
rest  of  him,  it  may  stop  here." 

The  delight  in  the  whale  tooth  faded  out 
of  the  Buli's  eyes,  and  he  glanced  about 
him  dubiously.  Yet  had  he  already  ac 
cepted  the  tooth. 

"A  little  thing  like  a  missionary  does 
not  matter,"  Erirola  prompted. 

"No,  a  little  thing  like  a  missionary  does 
not  matter,"  the  Buli  answered,  himself 
again.  "Mongondro  shall  have  the  boots. 
Go,  you  young  men,  some  three  or  four 
of  you,  and  meet  the  missionary  on  the 
trail.  Be  sure  you  bring  back  the  boots 
as  well." 


THE  WHALE  TOOTH  73 

"It  is  too  late,"  said  Erirola.  "Listen! 
He  comes  now." 

Breaking  through  the  thicket  of  brush, 
John  Starhurst,  with  Narau  close  on  his 
heels,  strode  upon  the  scene.  The  famous 
boots,  having  filled  in  wading  the  stream, 
squirted  fine  jets  of  water  at  every  step. 
Starhurst  looked  about  him  with  flashing 
eyes.  Upborne  by  an  unwavering  trust, 
untouched  by  doubt  or  fear,  he  exulted  in 
all  he  saw.  He  knew  that  since  the  begin 
ning  of  time  he  was  the  first  white  man  ever 
to  tread  the  mountain  stronghold  of  Gatoka. 

The  grass  houses  clung  to  the  steep 
mountain  side  or  overhung  the  rushing 
Rewa.  On  either  side  towered  a  mighty 
precipice.  At  the  best,  three  hours  of 
sunlight  penetrated  that  narrow  gorge. 
No  cocoanuts  nor  bananas  were  to  be  seen, 
though  dense,  tropic  vegetation  overran 
everything,  dripping  in  airy  festoons  from 
the  sheer  lips  of  the  precipices  and  running 
riot  in  all  the  crannied  ledges.  At  the  far 
end  of  the  gorge  the  Rewa  leaped  eight 


74  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

hundred  feet  in  a  single  span,  while  the 
atmosphere  of  the  rock  fortress  pulsed  to 
the  rhythmic  thunder  of  the  fall. 

From  the  Bull's  house  John  Starhurst 
saw  emerging  the  Buli  and  his  followers. 

"I  bring  you  good  tidings,"  was  the  mis 
sionary's  greeting. 

"Who  has-  sent  you  ?"  the  Buli  rejoined 
quietly. 

"God." 

"It  is  a  new  name  in  Viti  Levu,"  the  Buli 
grinned.  "Of  what  islands,  villages,  or 
passes  may  he  be  chief?" 

"He  is  the  chief  over  all  islands,  all 
villages,  all  passes,"  John  Starhurst  an 
swered  solemnly.  "He  is  the  Lord  over 
heaven  and  earth,  and  I  am  come  to 
bring  His  word  to  you." 

"Has  he  sent  whale  teeth  ?"  was  the 
insolent  query. 

"No,  but  more  precious  than  whale 
teeth  is  the  — 

"It  is  the  custom,  between  chiefs,  to 
send  whale  teeth,"  the  Buli  interrupted. 


THE   WHALE  TOOTH  75 

"Your  chief  is  either  a  niggard,  or  you 
are  a  fool,  to  come  empty-handed  into  the 
mountains.  Behold,  a  more  generous  than 
you  is  before  you." 

So  saying,  he  showed  the  whale  tooth  he 
had  received  from  Erirola. 

Narau  groaned. 

"It  is  the  whale  tooth  of  Ra  Vatu,"  he 
whispered  to  Starhurst.  "I  know  it  well. 
Now  are  we  undone." 

"A  gracious  thing,"  the  missionary  an 
swered,  passing  his  hand  through  his  long 
beard  and  adjusting  his  glasses.  "Ra  Vatu 
has  arranged  that  we  should  be  well  re 
ceived." 

But  Narau  groaned  again,  and  backed 
awray  from  the  heels  he  had  dogged  so 
faithfully. 

"Ra  Vatu  is  soon  to  become  Lotu," 
Starhurst  explained,  "  and  I  have  come 
bringing  the  Lotu  to  you." 

"I  want  none  of  your  Lotu,"  said  the 
Buli,  proudly.  "And  it  is  in  my  mind  that 
you  will  be  clubbed  this  day." 


76  THE   WHALE   TOOTH 

The  Bull  nodded  to  one  of  his  big  moun 
taineers,  who  stepped  forward,  swinging  a 
club.  Narau  bolted  into  the  nearest  house, 
seeking  to  hide  among  the  women  and  mats  ; 
but  John  Starhurst  sprang  in  under  the 
club  and  threw  his  arms  around  his  execu 
tioner's  neck.  From  this  point  of  vantage 
he  proceeded  to  argue.  He  was  arguing 
for  his  life,  and  he  knew  it;  but  he  was 
neither  excited  nor  afraid. 

"It  would  be  an  evil  thing  for  you  to  kill 
me,"  he  told  the  man.  "I  have  done  you 
no  wrong,  nor  have  I  done  the  Buli  wrong." 

So  well  did  he  cling  to  the  neck  of  the 
one  man  that  they  dared  not  strike  with 
their  clubs.  And  he  continued  to  cling  and 
to  dispute  for  his  life  with  those  who  clam 
ored  for  his  death. 

"I  am  John  Starhurst,"  he  went  on 
calmly.  "I  have  labored  in  Fiji  for  three 
years,  and  I  have  done  it  for  no  profit.  I 
am  here  among  you  for  good.  Why  should 
any  man  kill  me  ?  To  kill  me  will  not  profit 
any  man." 


THE   WHALE   TOOTH  77 

The  Bull  stole  a  look  at  the  whale  tooth. 
He  was  well  paid  for  the  deed. 

The  missionary  was  surrounded  by  a 
mass  of  naked  savages,  all  struggling  to 
get  at  him.  The  death  song,  which  is  the 
song  of  the  oven,  was  raised,  and  his  expos 
tulations  could  no  longer  be  heard.  But 
so  cunningly  did  he  twine  and  wreathe  his 
body  about  his  captor's  that  the  death 
blow  could  not  be  struck.  Erirola  smiled, 
and  the  Buli  grew  angry. 

"Away  with  you  !"  he  cried.  "A  nice 
story  to  go  back  to  the  coast  —  a  dozen 
of  you  and  one  missionary,  without  weapons, 
weak  as  a  woman,  overcoming  all  of  you." 

"Wait,  O  Buli,"  John  Starhurst  called 
out  from  the  thick  of  the  scuffle,  "and  I 
will  overcome  even  you.  For  my  weapons 
are  Truth  and  Right,  and  no  man  can  with 
stand  them." 

"Come  to  me,  then,"  the  Buli  answered, 
"  for  my  weapon  is  only  a  poor  miserable 
club,  and,  as  you  say,  it  cannot  withstand 
you." 


78  THE  WHALE  TOOTH 

The  group  separated  from  him,  and  John 
Starhurst  stood  alone,  facing  the  Buli,  who 
was  leaning  on  an  enormous,  knotted  war- 
club. 

"Come  to  me,  missionary  man,  and  over 
come  me,"  the  Buli  challenged. 

"Even  so  will  I  come  to  you  and  over 
come  you,"  John  Starhurst  made  answer, 
first  wiping  his  spectacles  and  settling  them 
properly,  then  beginning  his  advance. 

The  Buli  raised  the  club  and  waited. 

"In  the  first  place,  my  death  will  profit 
you  nothing,"  began  the  argument. 

"I  leave  the  answer  to  my  club,"  was 
the  Buli's  reply. 

And  to  every  point  he  made  the  same 
reply,  at  the  same  time  watching  the 
missionary  closely  in  order  to  forestall  that 
cunning  run-in  under  the  lifted  club.  Then, 
and  for  the  first  time,  John  Starhurst  knew 
that  his  death  was  at  hand.  He  made  no 
attempt  to  run  in.  Bareheaded,  he  stood 
in  the  sun  and  prayed  aloud  —  the  myste 
rious  figure  of  the  inevitable  white  man, 


THE   WHALE   TOOTH  79 

who,  with  Bible,  bullet,  or  rum  bottle,  has 
confronted  the  amazed  savage  in  his  every 
stronghold.  Even  so  stood  John  Starhurst 
in  the  rock  fortress  of  the  Buli  of  Gatoka.  ( 

"Forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do,"  he  prayed.  "O  Lord  !  have 
mercy  upon  Fiji.  Have  compassion  for 
Fiji.  O  Jehovah,  hear  us  for  His  sake, 
Thy  Son,  whom  Thou  didst  give  that 
through  Him  all  men  might  also  become 
Thy  children.  From  Thee  we  came,  and 
our  mind  is  that  to  Thee  we  may  return. 
The  land  is  dark,  O  Lord,  the  land  is  dark. 
But  Thou  art  mighty  to  save.  Reach 
out  Thy  hand,  O  Lord,  and  save  Fiji,  poor 
cannibal  Fiji." 

The  Buli  grew  impatient. 

"Now  will  I  answer  thee,"  he  muttered, 
at  the  same  time  swinging  his  club  with 
both  hands. 

Narau,  hiding  among  the  women  and 
the  mats,  heard  the  impact  of  the  blow  and 
shuddered.  Then  the  death  song  arose, 
and  he  knew  his  beloved  missionary's  body 


8o  THE   WHALE  TOOTH 

was  being  dragged  to  the  oven  as  he  heard 
the  words  : 

"Drag  me  gently.     Drag  me  gently." 

"  For  I  am  the  champion  of  my  land." 

"  Give  thanks  !  Give  thanks  !  Give 
thanks!" 

Next,  a  single  voice  arose  out  of  the  din, 
asking : 

"Where  is  the  brave  man  ?" 

A  hundred  voices  bellowed  the  answer : 

"Gone  to  be  dragged  into  the  oven  and 
cooked." 

"Where  is  the  coward  ?"  the  single  voice 
demanded. 

"Gone  to  report!"  the  hundred  voices 
bellowed  back.  "Gone  to  report !  Gone 
to  report ! " 

Narau  groaned  in  anguish  of  spirit.  The 
words  of  the  old  song  were  true.  He  was 
the  coward,  and  nothing  remained  to  him 
but  to  go  and  report. 


MAUKI 


MAUKI 

HE  weighed  one  hundred  and  ten 
pounds.  His  hair  was  kinky  and 
negroid,  and  he  was  black.  He  was 
peculiarly  black.  He  was  neither  blue- 
black  nor  purple-black,  but  plum-black. 
His  name  was  Mauki,  and  he  was  the  son 
of  a  chief.  He  had  three  tambos.  Tambo 
is  Melanesian  for  taboo,  and  is  first  cousin 
to  that  Polynesian  word.  Mauki's  three 
tambos  were  as  follows :  first,  he  must 
never  shake  hands  with  a  woman,  nor 
have  a  woman's  hand  touch  him  or  any 
of  his  personal  belongings ;  secondly,  he 
must  never  eat  clams  nor  any  food  from 
a  fire  in  which  clams  had  been  cooked ; 
thirdly,  he  must  never  touch  a  crocodile, 
nor  travel  in  a  canoe  that  carried  any 
part  of  a  crocodile  even  if  as  large  as  a 
tooth. 

83 


84  MAUKI 

Of  a  different  black  were  his  teeth,  which 
were  deep  black,  or,  perhaps  better,  lamp- 
black.  They  had  been  made  so  in  a  single 
night,  by  his  mother,  who  had  compressed 
about  them  a  powdered  mineral  which  was 
dug  from  the  landslide  back  of  Port  Adams. 
Port  Adams  is  a  salt-water  village  on 
Malaita,  and  Malaita  is  the  most  savage 
island  in  the  Solomons  —  so  savage  that 
no  traders  nor  planters  have  yet  gained  a 
foothold  on  it ;  while,  from  the  time  of 
the  earliest  beche-de-mer  fishers  and  sandal- 
wood  traders  down  to  the  latest  labor 
recruiters  equipped  with  automatic  rifles 
and  gasolene  engines,  scores  of  white  ad 
venturers  have  been  passed  out  by  toma 
hawks  and  soft-nosed  Snider  bullets.  So 
Malaita  remains  to-day,  in  the  twentieth 
century,  the  stamping  ground  of  the  labor 
recruiters,  who  farm  its  coasts  for  laborers 
who  engage  and  contract  themselves  to 
toil  on  the  plantations  of  the  neighboring 
and  more  civilized  islands  for  a  wage  of 
thirty  dollars  a  year.  The  natives  of  those 


MAUKI  85 

neighboring  and  more  civilized  islands  have 
themselves  become  too  civilized  to  work 
on  plantations. 

Mauki's  ears  were  pierced,  riot  in  one 
place,  nor  two  places,  but  in  a  couple  of 
dozen  places.  In  one  of  the  smaller  holes 
he  carried  a  clay  pipe.  The  larger  holes 
were  too  large  for  such  use.  The  bowl 
of  the  pipe  would  have  fallen  through.  In 
fact,  in  the  largest  hole  in  each  ear  he  ha 
bitually  wore  round  wooden  plugs  that  were 
an  even  four  inches  in  diameter.  Roughly 
speaking,  the  circumference  of  said  holes 
was  twelve  and  one-half  inches.  Mauki 
was  catholic  in  his  tastes.  In  the  various 
smaller  holes  he  carried  such  things  as 
empty  rifle  cartridges,  horseshoe  nails, 
copper  screws,  pieces  of  string,  braids  of 
sennit,  strips  of  green  leaf,  and,  in  the  cool 
of  the  day,  scarlet  hibiscus  flowers.  From 
which  it  will  be  seen  that  pockets  were 
not  necessary  to  his  well-being.  Besides, 
pockets  were  impossible,  for  his  only  wearing 
apparel  consisted  of  a  piece  of  calico  sev- 


86  MAUKI 

eral  inches  wide.  A  pocket  knife  he  wore 
in  his  hair,  the  blade  snapped  down  on  a 
kinky  lock.  His  most  prized  possession 
was  the  handle  of  a  china  cup,  which  he 
suspended  from  a  ring  of  turtle-shell,  which, 
in  turn,  was  passed  through  the  partition- 
cartilage  of  his  nose. 

But  in  spite  of  embellishments,  Mauki 
had  a  nice  face.  It  was  really  a  pretty  face, 
viewed  by  any  standard,  and  for  a  Melane- 
sian  it  was  a  remarkably  good-looking 
face.  Its  one  fault  was  its  lack  of  strength. 
It  was  softly  effeminate,  almost  girlish. 
The  features  were  small,  regular,  and  deli 
cate.  The  chin  was  weak,  and  the  mouth 
was  weak.  There  was  no  strength  nor 
character  in  the  jaws,  forehead,  and  nose. 
In  the  eyes  only  could  be  caught  any  hint 
of  the  unknown  quantities  that  were  so 
large  a  part  of  his  make-up  and  that  other 
persons  could  not  understand.  These  un 
known  quantities  were  pluck,  pertinacity, 
fearlessness,  imagination,  and  cunning; 
and  when  they  found  expression  in  some 


MAUKI  87 

consistent  and  striking  action,  those  about 
him  were  astounded. 

Mauki's  father  was  chief  over  the  village 
at  Port  Adams,  and  thus,  by  birth  a  salt 
water  man,  Mauki  was  half  amphibian. 
He  knew  the  way  of  the  fishes  and  oysters, 
and  the  reef  was  an  open  book  to  him. 
Canoes,  also,  he  knew.  He  learned  to 
swim  when  he  was  a  year  old.  At  seven 
years  he  could  hold  his  breath  a  full  minute 
and  swim  straight  down  to  bottom  through 
thirty  feet  of  water.  And  at  seven  years 
he  was  stolen  by  the  bushmen,  who  cannot 
even  swim  and  who  are  afraid  of  salt  water. 
Thereafter  Mauki  saw  the  sea  only  from 
a  distance,  through  rifts  in  the  jungle  and 
from  open  spaces  on  the  high  mountain 
sides.  He  became  the  slave  of  old  Fanfoa, 
head  chief  over  a  score  of  scattered  bush- 
villages  on  the  range-lips  of  Malaita,  the 
smoke  of  which,  on  calm  mornings,  is  about 
the  only  evidence  the  seafaring  white  men 
have  of  the  teeming  interior  population. 
For  the  whites  do  not  penetrate  Malaita. 


88  MAUKI 

They  tried  it  once,  in  the  days  when  the 
search  was  on  for  gold,  but  they  always 
left  their  heads  behind  to  grin  from  the 
smoky  rafters  of  the  bushmen's  huts. 

When  Mauki  was  a  young  man  of  seven 
teen,  Fanfoa  got  out  of  tobacco.     He  got 

» 

dreadfully  out  of  tobacco.  It  was  hard 
times  in  all  his  villages.  He  had  been 
guilty  of  a  mistake.  Suo  was  a  harbor 
so  small  that  a  large  schooner  could  not 
swing  at  anchor  in  it.  It  was  surrounded 
by  mangroves  that  overhung  the  deep  water. 
It  was  a  trap,  and  into  the  trap  sailed  two 
white  men  in  a  small  ketch.  They  were 
after  recruits,  and  they  possessed  much 
tobacco  and  trade-goods,  to  say  nothing 
of  three  rifles  and  plenty  of  ammunition. 
Now  there  were  no  salt-water  men  living 
at  Suo,  and  it  was  there  that  the  bushmen 
could  come  down  to  the  sea.  The  ketch 
did  a  splendid  traffic.  It  signed  on  twenty 
recruits  the  first  day.  Even  old  Fanfoa 
signed  on.  And  that  same  day  the  score  of 
new  recruits  chopped  off  the  two  white 


MAUKI  89 

men's  heads,  killed  the  boat's  crew,  and 
burned  the  ketch.  Thereafter,  and  for  three 
months,  there  was  tobacco  and  trade-goods 
in  plenty  and  to  spare  in  all  the  bush- 
villages.  Then  came  the  man-of-war  that 
threw  shells  for  miles  into  the  hills,  frighten 
ing  the  people  out  of  their  villages  and  into 
the  deeper  bush.  Next  the  man-of-war 
sent  landing  parties  ashore.  The  villages 
Were  all  burned,  along  with  the  tobacco  and 
trade-stuff.  The  cocoanuts  and  bananas 
were  chopped  down,  the  taro  gardens  up 
rooted,  and  the  pigs  and  chickens  killed. 

It  taught  Fanfoa  a  lesson,  but  in  the 
meantime  he  was  out  of  tobacco.  Also, 
his  young  men  were  too  frightened  to  sign 
on  with  the  recruiting  vessels.  That  was 
why  Fanfoa  ordered  his  slave,  Mauki, 
to  be  carried  down  and  signed  on  for  half 
a  case  of  tobacco  advance,  along  with 
knives,  axes,  calico,  and  beads,  which  he 
would  pay  for  with  his  toil  on  the  planta 
tions.  Mauki  was  sorely  frightened  when 
they  brought  him  on  board  the  schooner. 


$o  MAUKI 

He  was  a  lamb  led  to  the  slaughter.  White 
men  were  ferocious  creatures.  They  had 
to  be,  or  else  they  would  not  make  a  practice 
of  venturing  along  the  Malaita  coast  and 
into  all  harbors,  two  on  a  schooner,  when 
each  schooner  carried  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
blacks  as  boat's  crew,  and  often  as  high 
as  sixty  or  seventy  black  recruits.  In 
addition  to  this,  there  was  always  the  danger 
of  the  shore  population,  the  sudden  attack 
and  the  cutting  off  of  the  schooner  and  all 
hands.  Truly,  white  men  must  be  terrible. 
Besides,  they  were  possessed  of  such  devil- 
devils  —  rifles  that  shot  very  rapidly  many 
times,  things  of  iron  and  brass  that  made 
the  schooners  go  when  there  was  no  wind, 
and  boxes  that  talked  and  laughed  just  as 
men  talked  and  laughed.  Ay,  and  he 
had  heard  of  one  white  man  whose  partic 
ular  devil-devil  was  so  powerful  that  he 
could  take  out  all  his  teeth  and  put  them 
back  at  will. 

Down  into  the  cabin  they  took  Mauki. 
On   deck,  the  one  white  man   kept  guard 


MAUKI  91 

with  two  revolvers  in  his  belt.  In  the 
cabin  the  other  white  man  sat  with  a 
book  before  him,  in  which  he  inscribed 
strange  marks  and  lines.  He  looked  at 
Mauki  as  though  he  had  been  a  pig  or  a 
fowl,  glanced  under  the  hollows  of  his  arms, 
and  wrote  in  the  book.  Then  he  held  out 
the  writing  stick  and  Mauki  just  barely 
touched  it  with  his  hand,  in  so  doing  pledging 
himself  to  toil  for  three  years  on  the  planta 
tions  of  the  Moongleam  Soap  Company. 
It  was  not  explained  to  him  that  the  will 
of  the  ferocious  white  men  would  be  used 
to  enforce  the  pledge,  and  that,  behind  all, 
for  the  same  use,  was  all  the  power  and  all 
the  warships  of  Great  Britain. 

Other  blacks  there  were  on  board,  from 
unheard-of  far  places,  and  when  the  white 
man  spoke  to  them,  they  tore  the  long 
feather  from  Mauki's  hair,  cut  that  same 
hair  short,  and  wrapped  about  his  waist 
a  lava-lava  of  bright  yellow  calico. 

After  many  days  on  the  schooner,  and 
after  beholding  more  land  and  islands  than 


92  MAUKI 

he  had  ever  dreamed  of,  he  was  landed  on 
New  Georgia,  and  put  to  work  in  the  field 
clearing  jungle  and  cutting  cane  grass. 
For  the  first  time  he  knew  what  work  was. 
Even  as  a  slave  to  Fanfoa  he  had  not 
worked  like  this.  And  he  did  not  like  work. 
It  was  up  at  dawn  and  in  at  dark,  on  two 
meals  a  day.  And  the  food  was  tiresome. 
For  weeks  at  a  time  they  were  given  noth 
ing  but  sweet  potatoes  to  eat,  and  for  weeks 
at  a  time  it  would  be  nothing  but  rice.  He 
cut  out  the  cocoanut  from  the  shells  day 
after  day;  and  for  long  days  and  weeks  he 
fed  the  fires  that  smoked  the  copra,  till 
his  eyes  got  sore  and  he  was  set  to  felling 
trees.  He  was  a  good  axe-man,  and  later 
he  was  put  in  the  bridge-building  gang. 
Once,  he  was  punished  by  being  put  in 
the  road-building  gang.  At  times  he  served 
as  boat's  crew  in  the  whale-boats,  when 
they  brought  in  copra  from  distant  beaches 
or  when  the  \vhite  men  went  out  to  dynamite 
fish. 

Among   other   things   he  learned  beche- 


MAUKI  93 

de-mer  English,  with  which  he  could  talk 
with  all  white  men,  and  with  all  recruits 
who  otherwise  would  have  talked  in  a  thou 
sand  different  dialects.  Also,  he  learned 
certain  things  about  the  white  men,  princi 
pally  that  they  kept  their  word.  If  they 
told  a  boy  he  was  going  to  receive  a  stick  of 
tobacco,  he  got  it.  If  they  told  a  boy  they 
would  knock  seven  bells  out  of  him  if  he 
did  a  certain  thing,  when  he  did  that  thing 
seven  bells  invariably  were  knocked  out 
of  him.  Mauki  did  not  know  what  seven 
bells  were,  but  they  occurred  in  beche-de- 
mer,  and  he  imagined  them  to  be  the  blood 
and  teeth  that  sometimes  accompanied 
the  process  of  knocking  out  seven  bells. 
One  other  thing  he  learned  :  no  boy  was 
struck  or  punished  unless  he  did  wrong. 
Even  when  the  white  men  were  drunk,  as 
they  were  frequently,  they  never  struck 
unless  a  rule  had  been  broken. 

Mauki  did  not  like  the  plantation.     He 
hated  work,  and  he  was  the  son  of  a  chief 
Furthermore,  it  was  ten  years  since  he  had 


94  MAUKI 

been  stolen  from  Port  Adams  by  Fanfoa, 
and  he  was  homesick.  He  was  even  home 
sick  for  the  slavery  under  Farifoa.  So  he 
ran  away.  He  struck  back  into  the  bush, 
with  the  idea  of  working  southward  to  the 
beach  and  stealing  a  canoe  in  which  to 
go  home  to  Port  Adams.  But  the  fever 
got  him,  and  he  was  captured  and  brought 
back  more  dead  than  alive. 

A  second  time  he  ran  away,  in  the  com 
pany  of  two  Malaita  boys.  They  got  down 
the  coast  twenty  miles,  and  were  hidden  in 
the  hut  of  a  Malaita  freeman,  who  dwelt 
in  that  village.  But  in  the  dead  of  night 
two  white  men  came,  who  were  not  afraid 
of  all  the  village  people  and  who  knocked 
seven  bells  out  of  the  three  runaways,  tied 
them  like  pigs,  and  tossed  them  into  the 
whale-boat.  But  the  man  in  whose  house 
they  had  hidden  —  seven  times  seven  bells 
must  have  been  knocked  out  of  him  from  the 
way  the  hair,  skin,  and  teeth  flew,  and  he  was 
discouraged  for  the  rest  of  his  natural  life 
from  harboring  runaway  laborers. 


MAUKI  95 

For  a  year  Mauki  toiled  on.  Then  he 
was  made  a  house-boy,  and  had  good  food 
and  easy  times,  with  light  work  in  keeping 
the  house  clean  and  serving  the  white  men 
with  whiskey  and  beer  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  and  most  hours  of  the  night.  He 
liked  it,  but  he  liked  Port  Adams  more. 
He  had  two  years  longer  to  serve,  but  two 
years  were  too  long  for  him  in  the  throes 
of  homesickness.  He  had  grown  wiser  with 
his  year  of  service,  and,  being  now  a  house- 
boy,  he  had  opportunity.  He  had  the  clean 
ing  of  the  rifles,  and  he  knew  where  the  key 
to  the  store-room  was  hung.  He  planned 
the  escape,  and  one  night  ten  Malaita  boys 
and  one  boy  from  San  Cristoval  sneaked  from 
the  barracks  and  dragged  one  of  the  whale- 
boats  down  to  the  beach.  It  was  Mauki 
who  supplied  the  key  that  opened  the  pad 
lock  on  the  boat,  and  it  was  Mauki  who 
equipped  the  boat  with  a  dozen  Winches 
ters,  an  immense  amount  of  ammunition, 
a  case  of  dynamite  with  detonators  and 
fuse,  and  ten  cases  of  tobacco,/ 


96  MAUKI 

The  northwest  monsoon  was  blowing, 
and  they  fled  south  in  the  night-time, 
hiding  by  day  on  detached  and  uninhabited 
islets,  or  dragging  their  whale-boat  into 
the  bush  on  the  large  islands.  Thus  they 
gained  Guadalcanar,  skirted  halfway  along 
it,  and  crossed  the  Indispensable  Straits 
to  Florida  Island.  It  was  here  that  they 
killed  the  San  Cristoval  boy,  saving  his 
head  and  cooking  and  eating  the  rest  of 
him.  The  Malaita  coast  was  only  twenty 
miles  away,  but  the  last  night  a  strong 
current  and  baffling  winds  prevented  them 
from  gaining  across.  Daylight  found  them 
still  several  miles  from  their  goal.  But 
daylight  brought  a  cutter,  in  which  were 
two  white  men,  who  were  not  afraid  of 
eleven  Malaita  men  armed  with  twelve 
rifles.  Mauki  and  his  companions  were 
carried  back  to  Tulagi,  where  lived  the 
great  white  master  of  all  the  white  men. 
And  the  great  white  master  held  a  court, 
after  which,  one  by  one,  the  runaways 
were  tied  up  and  given  twenty  lashes  each, 


MAUKI  97 

and  sentenced  to  a  fine  of  fifteen  dollars. 
Then  they  were  sent  back  to  New  Georgia, 
where  the  white  men  knocked  seven  bells 
out  of  them  all  around  and  put  them  to 
work.  But  Mauki  was  no  longer  house- 
boy.  He  was  put  in  the  road-making  gang. 
The  fine  of  fifteen  dollars  had  been  paid 
by  the  white  men  from  whom  he  had  run 
away,  and  he  was  told  that  he  would  have 
to  work  it  out,  which  meant  six  months' 
additional  toil.  Further,  his  share  of  the 
stolen  tobacco  earned  him  another  year 
of  toil. 

Port  Adams  was  now  three  years  and  a 
half  away,  so  he  stole  a  canoe  one  night, 
hid  on  the  islets  in  Manning  Straits,  passed 
through  the  Straits,  and  began  working 
along  the  eastern  coast  of  Ysabel,  only  to 
be  captured,  two-thirds  of  the  way  along, 
by  the  white  men  on  Meringe  Lagoon. 
After  a  week,  he  escaped  from  them  and 
took  to  the  bush.  There  were  no  bush 
natives  on  Ysabel,  only  salt-water  men5 
who  were  all  Christians.  v  The  white  men 


98  MAUKI 

put  up  a  reward  of  five  hundred  sticks  of 
tobacco,  and  every  time  Mauki  ventured 
down  to  the  sea  to  steal  a  canoe  he  was 
chased  by  the  salt-water  men.  Four 
months  of  this  passed,  when,  the  reward 
having  been  raised  to  a  thousand  sticks, 
he  was  caught  and  sent  back  to  New 
Georgia  and  the  road-building  gang.  Now 
a  thousand  sticks  are  worth  fifty  dollars, 
and  Mauki  had  to  pay  the  reward  himself, 
which  required  a  year  and  eight  months' 
labor.  So  Port  Adams  was  now  five  years 
away. 

His  homesickness  was  greater  than  ever, 
and  it  did  not  appeal  to  him  to  settle  down 
and  be  good,  work  out  his  four  years,  and 
go  home.  The  next  time,  he  was  caught 
in  the  very  act  of  running  away.  His 
case  was  brought  before  Mr.  Haveby,  the 
island  manager  of  the  Moongleam  Soap 
Company,  who  adjudged  him  an  incorri 
gible.  The  Company  had  plantations  on 
the  Santa  Cruz  Islands,  hundreds  of  miles 
across  the  sea,  and  there  it  sent  its  Solomon 


MAUKI  99 

Islands'  incorrigibles.  And  there  Mauki 
was  sent,  though  he  never  arrived.  The 
schooner  stopped  at  Santa  Anna,  and  in  the 
night  Mauki  swam  ashore,  where  he  stole 
two  rifles  and  a  case  of  tobacco  from  the 
trader  and  got  away  in  a  canoe  to  Cristoval. 
Malaita  was  now  to  the  north,  fifty  or 
sixty  miles  away.  But  when  he  attempted 
the  passage,  he  was  caught  by  a  light  gale 
and  driven  back  to  Santa  Anna,  where 
the  trader  clapped  him  in  irons  and  held 
him  against  the  return  of  the  schooner 
from  Santa  Cruz.  The  two  rifles  the 
trader  recovered,  but  the  case  of  tobacco 
was  charged  up  to  Mauki  at  the  rate  of 
another  year.  The  sum  of  years  he  now 
owed  the  Company  was  six. 

On  the  way  back  to  New  Georgia,  the 
schooner  dropped  anchor  in  Marau  Sound, 
which  lies  at  the  southeastern  extremity 
of  Guadalcanar.  Mauki  swam  ashore  with 
handcuffs  on  his  wrists  and  got  away  to 
the  bush.  The  schooner  went  on,  but  the 
Moongleam  trader  ashore  offered  a  thou- 


ioo  MAUKI 

sand  sticks,  and  to  him  Mauki  was  brought 
by  the  bushmen  with  a  year  and  eight 
months  tacked  on  to  his  account.  Again, 
and  before  the  schooner  called  in,  he  got 
away,  this  time  in  a  whale-boat  accom 
panied  by  a  case  of  the  trader's  tobacco. 
But  a  northwest  gale  wrecked  him  upon 
Ugi,  where  the  Christian  natives  stole  his 
tobacco  and  turned  him  over  to  the  Moon- 
gleam  trader  who  resided  there.  The 
tobacco  the  natives  stole  meant  another 
year  for  him,  and  the  tale  was  now  eight 
years  and  a  half. 

"We'll  send  him  to  Lord  Howe,"  said 
Mr.  Haveby.  "Bunster  is  there,  and  we'll 
let  them  settle  it  between  them.  It  will 
be  a  case,  I  imagine,  of  Mauki  getting 
Bunster,  or  Bunster  getting  Mauki,  and 
good  riddance  in  either  event." 

If  one  leaves  Meringe  Lagoon,  on  Ysa- 
bel,  and  steers  a  course  due  north,  mag 
netic,  at  the  end  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  he  will  lift  the  pounded  coral  beaches 
of  Lord  Howe  above  the  sea.  Lord  Howe 


MAUKI  *oi 

is  a  ring  of  land  some  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  in  circumference,  several  hun 
dred  yards  wide  at  its  widest,  and  towering 
in  places  to  a  height  of  ten  feet  above  sea- 
level.  Inside  this  ring  of  sand  is  a  mighty 
lagoon  studded  with  coral  patches.  Lord 
Howe  belongs  to  the  Solomons  neither 
geographically  nor  ethnologically.  It  is  an 
atoll,  while  the  Solomons  are  high  is 
lands  ;  and  its  people  and  language  are 
Polynesian,  while  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Solomons  are  Alelanesian.  Lord  Howe  has 
been  populated  by  the  westward  Polynesian 
drift  which  continues  to  this  day,  big  out 
rigger  canoes  being  washed  upon  its  beaches 
by  the  southeast  trade.  That  there  has 
been  a  slight  Melanesian  drift  in  the  period 
of  the  northwest  monsoon,  is  also  evident. 
Nobody  ever  comes  to  Lord  Howe,  or 
Ontong-Java  as  it  is  sometimes  called. 
Thomas  Cook  &  Son  do  not  sell  tickets 
to  it,  and  tourists  do  not  dream  of  its  exist 
ence.  Not  even  a  white  missionary  has 
landed  on  its  shore.  Its  five  thousand 


MAUKI 

natives  are  as  peaceable  as  they  are  primi 
tive.  Yet  they  were  not  always  peaceable. 
The  Sailing  Directions  speak  of  them  as 
hostile  and  treacherous.  But  the  men  who 
compile  the  Sailing  Directions  have  never 
heard  of  the  change  that  was  worked  in  the 
hearts  of  the  inhabitants,  who,  not  many 
years  ago,  cut  off  a  big  bark  and  killed  all 
hands  with  the  exception  of  the  second 
mate.  This  survivor  carried  the  news 
to  his  brothers.  The  captains  of  three 
trading  schooners  returned  with  him  to 
Lord  Howe.  They  sailed  their  vessels 
right  into  the  lagoon  and  proceeded  to 
preach  the  white  man's  gospel  that  only 
white  men  shall  kill  white  men  and  that  the 
lesser  breeds  must  keep  hands  off.  The 
schooners  sailed  up  and  down  the  lagoon, 
harrying  and  destroying.  There  was  no 
escape  from  the  narrow  sand-circle,  no 
bush  to  which  to  flee.  The  men  were  shot 
down  at  sight,  and  there  was  no  avoiding 
being  sighted.  The  villages  were  burned, 
the  canoes  smashed,  the  chickens  and  pigs 


MAUKI  '163 

killed,  and  the  precious  cocoanut-trees 
chopped  down.  For  a  month  this  con 
tinued,  when  the  schooners  sailed  away; 
but  the  fear  of  the  white  man  had  been 
seared  into  the  souls  of  the  islanders  and 
never  again  were  they  rash  enough  to  harm 
one. 

Max  Bunster  was  the  one  white  man  on 
Lord  Howe,  trading  in  the  pay  of  the  ubiq 
uitous  Moongleam  Soap  Company.  And 
the  Company  billeted  him  on  Lord  Howe, 
because,  next  to  getting  rid  of  him,  it  was 
the  most  out-of-the-way  place  to  be  found. 
That  the  Company  did  not  get  rid  of  him 
was  due  to  the  difficulty  of  finding  another 
man  to  take  his  place.  He  was  a  strapping 
big  German,  with  something  wrong  in  his 
brain.  Semi-madness  would  be  a  chari 
table  statement  of  his  condition.  He  was 
a  bully  and  a  coward,  and  a  thrice-bigger 
savage  than  any  savage  on  the  island. 
Being  a  coward,  his  brutality  was  of  the 
cowardly  order.  When  he  first  went  into 
the  Company's  employ,  he  was  stationed 


104  MAUKI 

on  Savo.  When  a  consumptive  colonial 
was  sent  to  take  his  place,  he  beat  him  up 
with  his  fists  and  sent  him  off  a  wreck  in 
the  schooner  that  brought  him. 

Mr.  Haveby  next  selected  a  young  York 
shire  giant  to  relieve  Bunster.  The  York 
shire  man  had  a  reputation  as  a  bruiser 
and  preferred  fighting  to  eating.  But 
Bunster  wouldn't  fight.  He  was  a  regular 
little  lamb  —  for  ten  days,  at  the  end  of 
which  time  the  Yorkshire  man  was  pros 
trated  by  a  combined  attack  of  dysentery 
and  fever.  Then  Bunster  went  for  him, 
among  other  things  getting  him  down  and 
jumping  on  him  a  score  or  so  of  times. 
Afraid  of  what  would  happen  when  his 
victim  recovered,  Bunster  fled  away  in  a 
cutter  to  Guvutu,  where  he  signalized  him 
self  by  beating  up  a  young  Englishman 
already  crippled  by  a  Boer  bullet  through 
both  hips. 

Then  it  was  that  Mr.  Haveby  sent  Bun 
ster  to  Lord  Howe,  the  falling-ofl  place. 
He  celebrated  his  landing  by  mopping 


MAUKI  105 

up  half  a  case  of  gin  and  by  thrashing  the 
elderly  and  wheezy  mate  of  the  schooner 
which  had  brought  him.  When  the 
schooner  departed,  he  called  the  kanakas 
down  to  the  beach  and  challenged  them  to 
throw  him  in  a  wrestling  bout,  promising 
a  case  of  tobacco  to  the  one  who  succeeded. 
Three  kanakas  he  threw,  but  was  promptly 
thrown  by  a  fourth,  who,  instead  of  receiv 
ing  the  tobacco,  got  a  bullet  through  his 
lungs. 

And  so  began  Bunster's  reign  on  Lord 
Howe.  Three  thousand  people  lived  in 
the  principal  village ;  but  it  was  deserted, 
even  in  broad  day,  when  he  passed  through. 
Men,  women,  and  children  fled  before  him. 
Even  the  dogs  and  pigs  got  out  of  the  way, 
while  the  king  was  not  above  hiding  under 
a  mat.  The  two  prime  ministers  lived  in 
terror  of  Bunster,  who  never  discussed  any 
moot  subject,  but  struck  out  with  his 
fists  instead. 

And  to  Lord  Howe  came  Mauki,  to  toil 
for  Bunster  for  eight  long  years  and  a 


106  MAUKI 

half.  There  was  no  escaping  from  Lord 
Howe.  For  better  or  worse,  Bunster  and 
he  were  tied  together.  Bunster  weighed 
two  hundred  pounds.  Mauki  weighed  one 
hundred  and  ten.  Bunster  was  a  de 
generate  brute.  But  Mauki  was  a  primi 
tive  savage.  While  both  had  wills  and 
ways  of  their  own. 

Mauki  had  no  idea  of  the  sort  of  master 
he  was  to  work  for.  He  had  had  no  warn 
ings,  and  he  had  concluded  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  Bunster  would  be  like  other 
white  men,  a  drinker  of  much  whiskey,  a 
ruler  and  a  lawgiver  who  always  kept  his 
word  and  who  never  struck  a  boy  un 
deserved.  Bunster  had  the  advantage. 
He  knew  all  about  Mauki,  and  gloated  over 
the  coming  into  possession  of  him.  The 
last  cook  was  suffering  from  a  broken  arm 
and  a  dislocated  shoulder,  so  Bunster  made 
Mauki  cook  and  general  house-boy. 

And  Mauki  soon  learned  that  there  were 
white  men  and  white  men.  On  the  very 
day  the  schooner  departed  he  was  ordered 


MAUKI  107 

to  buy  a  chicken  from  Samisee,  the  native 
Tongan  missionary.  But  Samisee  had 
sailed  across  the  lagoon  and  would  not  be 
back  for  three  days.  Mauki  returned  with 
the  information.  He  climbed  the  steep 
stairway  (the  house  stood  on  piles  twelve 
feet  above  the  sand),  and  entered  the  liv 
ing-room  to  report.  The  trader  demanded 
the  chicken.  Mauki  opened  his  mouth  to 
explain  the  missionary's  absence.  But 
Bunster  did  not  care  for  explanations.  He 
struck  out  with  his  fist.  The  blow  caught 
Mauki  on  the  mouth  and  lifted  him  into 
the  air.  Clear  through  the  doorway  he 
flew,  across  the  narrow  veranda,  breaking 
the  top  railing,  and  down  to  the  ground. 
His  lips  were  a  contused,  shapeless  mass, 
and  his  mouth  was  full  of  blood  and  broken 
teeth. 

"That'll  teach  you  that  back  talk  don't 
go  with  me,"  the  trader  shouted,  purple 
with  rage,  peering  down  at  him  over  the 
broken  railing.  4 

Mauki  had  never  met  a  white  man  like 


io8  MAUKI 

this,  and  he  resolved  to  walk  small  and 
never  offend.  He  saw  the  boat-boys 
knocked  about,  and  one  of  them  put  in 
irons  for  three  days  with  nothing  to  eat 
for  the  crime  of  breaking  a  rowlock  while 
pulling.  Then,  too,  he  heard  the  gossip 
of  the  village  and  learned  why  Bunster 
had  taken  a  third  wife  —  by  force,  as  was 
well  known.  The  first  and  second  wives 
lay  in  the  graveyard,  under  the  white 
coral  sand,  with  slabs  of  coral  rock  at  head 
and  feet.  They  had  died,  it  was  said, 
from  beatings  he  had  given  them.  The 
third  wife  was  certainly  ill-used,  as  Mauki 
could  see  for  himself. 

But  there  was  no  way  by  which  to 
avoid  offending  the  white  man,  who  seemed 
offended  with  life.  When  Mauki  kept 
silent,  he  was  struck  and  called  a  sullen 
brute.  When  he  spoke,  he  was  struck  for 
giving  back  talk.  When  he  was  grave, 
Bunster  accused  him  of  plotting  and  gave 
him  a  thrashing  in  advance ;  and  when  he 
strove  to  be  cheerful  and  to  smile,  he  was 


MAUKI  109 

charged  with  sneering  at  his  lord  and  master 
and  given  a  taste  of  stick.  Bunster  was  a 
devil.  The  village  would  have  done  for 
him,  had  it  not  remembered  the  lesson  of 
the  three  schooners.  It  might  have  done 
for  him  anyway,  if  there  had  been  a  bush 
to  which  to  flee.  As  it  was,  the  murder  of 
the  white  men,  of  any  white  man,  would 
bring  a  man-of-war  that  would  kill  the 
offenders  and  chop  down  the  precious 
cocoanut-trees.  Then  there  were  the  boat- 
boys,  with  minds  fully  made  up  to  drown 
him  by  accident  at  the  first  opportunity 
to  capsize  the  cutter.  Only  Bunster  saw 
to  it  that  the  boat  did  not  capsize. 

Mauki  was  of  a  different  breed,  and, 
escape  being  impossible  while  Bunster 
lived,  he  was  resolved  to  get  the  white 
man.  The  trouble  was  that  he  could  never 
find  a  chance.  Bunster  was  always  on 
guard.  Day  and  night  his  revolvers  were 
ready  to  hand.  He  permitted  nobody  to 
pass  behind  his  back,  as  Mauki  learned 
after  having  been  knocked  down  several 


i  io  MAUKI 

times.  Bunster  knew  that  he  had  more 
to  fear  from  the  good-natured,  even  sweet- 
faced,  Malaita  boy  than  from  the  entire 
population  of  Lord  Howe ;  and  it  gave 
added  zest  to  the  programme  of  torment 
he  was  carrying  out.  And  Mauki  walked 
small,  accepted  his  punishments,  and 
waited. 

All  other  white  men  had  respected  his 
tambos,  but  not  so  Bunster.  Mauki's 
weekly  allowance  of  tobacco  was  two  sticks. 
Bunster  passed  them  to  his  woman  and 
ordered  Mauki  to  receive  them  from  her 
hand.  But  this  could  not  be,  and  Mauki 
went  without  his  tobacco.  In  the  same 
way  he  was  made  to  miss  many  a  meal, 
and  to  go  hungry  many  a  day.  He  was 
ordered  to  make  chowder  out  of  the  big 
clams  that  grew  in  the  lagoon.  This  he 
could  not  do,  for  clams  were  tambo.  Six 
times  in  succession  he  refused  to  touch 
the  clams,  and  six  times  he  was  knocked 
senseless.  Bunster  knew  that  the  boy 
would  die  first,  but  called  his  refusal  mutiny, 


MAUKI  in 

and  would  have  killed  him  had  there  been 
another  cook  to  take  his  place. 

One  of  the  trader's  favorite  tricks  was 
to  catch  Mauki's  kinky  locks  and  bat  his 
head  against  the  wall.  Another  trick  was 
to  catch  Mauki  unawares  and  thrust  the 
live  end  of  a  cigar  against  his  flesh.  This 
Bunster  called  vaccination,  and  Mauki 
was  vaccinated  a  number  of  times  a  week. 
Once,  in  a  rage,  Bunster  ripped  the  cup 
handle  from  Mauki's  nose,  tearing  the  hole 
clear  out  of  the  cartilage. 

"Oh,  what  a  mug!"  was  his  comment, 
when  he  surveyed  the  damage  he  had 
wrought. 

The  skin  of  a  shark  is  like  sandpaper, 
but  the  skin  of  a  ray  fish  is  like  a  rasp. 
In  the  South  Seas  the  natives  use  it  as  a 
wood  file  in  smoothing  down  canoes  and 
paddles.  Bunster  had  a  mitten  made  of 
ray  fish  skin.  The  first  time  he  tried  it 
on  Mauki,  with  one  sweep  of  the  hand  it 
fetched  the  skin  off  his  back  from  neck  to 
armpit.  Bunster  was  delighted.  He  gave 


MAUKI 

his  wife  a  taste  of  the  mitten,  and  tried 
it  out  thoroughly  on  the  boat-boys.  The 
prime  ministers  came  in  for  a  stroke  each, 
and  they  had  to  grin  and  take  it  for  a  joke. 

"Laugh,  damn  you,  laugh!"  was  the 
cue  he  gave. 

Mauki  came  in  for  the  largest  share  of 
the  mitten.  Never  a  day  passed  without 
a  caress  from  it.  There  were  times  when 
the  loss  of  so  much  cuticle  kept  him  awake 
at  night,  and  often  the  half-healed  surface 
was  raked  raw  afresh  by  the  facetious  Mr. 
Bunster.  Mauki  continued  his  patient 
wait,  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  sooner 
or  later  his  time  would  come.  And  he 
knew  just  what  he  was  going  to  do,  down 
to  the  smallest  detail,  when  the  time  did 
come. 

One  morning  Bunster  got  up  in  a  mood 
for  knocking  seven  bells  out  of  the  uni 
verse.  He  began  on  Mauki,  and  wound 
up  on  Mauki,  in  the  interval  knocking 
down  his  wife  and  hammering  all  the  boat- 
boys.  At  breakfast  he  called  the  coffee 


MAUKI  113 

slops  and  threw  the  scalding  contents  of 
the  cup  into  Mauki's  face.  By  ten  o'clock 
Bunster  was  shivering  with  ague,  and  half 
an  hour  later  he  was  burning  with  fever. 
It  was  no  ordinary  attack.  It  quickly 
became  pernicious,  and  developed  into 
black-water  fever.  The  days  passed,  and 
he  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  never  leaving 
his  bed.  Mauki  waited  and  watched,  the 
while  his  skin  grew  intact  once  more.  He 
ordered  the  boys  to  beach  the  cutter,  scrub 
her  bottom,  and  give  her  a  general  over 
hauling.  They  thought  the  order  eman 
ated  from  Bunster,  and  they  obeyed.  But 
Bunster  at  the  time  was  lying  unconscious 
and  giving  no  orders.  This  was  Mauki's 
chance,  but  still  he  waited. 

When  the  worst  was  past,  and  Bunster 
lay  convalescent  and  conscious,  but  weak 
as  a  baby,  Mauki  packed  his  few  trinkets, 
including  the  china  cup  handle,  into  his 
trade  box.  Then  he  went  over  to  the  vil 
lage  and  interviewed  the  king  and  his  two 
prime  ministers. 


ii4  MAUKI 

"This  fella  Bunster,  him  good  fella  you 
like  too  much  ?"  he  asked. 

They  explained  in  one  voice  that  they 
liked  the  trader  not  at  all.  The  ministers 
poured  forth  a  recital  of  all  the  indignities 
and  wrongs  that  had  been  heaped  upon 
them.  The  king  broke  down  and  wept. 
Mauki  interrupted  rudely. 

"You  savve  me  —  me  big  fella  marster 
my  country.  You  no  like  'm  this  fella 
white  marster.  Me  no  like  'm.  Plenty 
good  you  put  hundred  cocoanut,  two  hun 
dred  cocoanut,  three  hundred  cocoanut  along 
cutter.  Him  finish,  you  go  sleep  'm  good 
fella.  Altogether  kanaka  sleep  'm  good  fella. 
Bime  by  big  fella  noise  along  house,  you  no 
savve  hear  'm  that  fella  noise.  You  alto 
gether  sleep  strong  fella  too  much." 

In  like  manner  Mauki  interviewed  the 
boat-boys.  Then  he  ordered  Bunster's 
wife  to  return  to  her  family  house.  Had 
she  refused,  he  would  have  been  in  a  quan 
dary,  for  his  tambo  would  not  have  permitted 
him  to  lay  hands  on  her. 


MAUKI  115 

The  house  deserted,  he  entered  the  sleep 
ing-room,  where  the  trader  lay  in  a  doze. 
Mauki  first  removed  the  revolvers,  then 
placed  the  ray  fish  mitten  on  his  hand. 
Bunster's  first  warning  was  a  stroke  of 
the  mitten  that  removed  the  skin  the  full 
length  of  his  nose. 

"Good  fella,  eh?"  Mauki  grinned,  be 
tween  two  strokes,  one  of  which  swept  the 
forehead  bare  and  the  other  of  which 
cleaned  off  one  side  of  his  face.  "Laugh, 
damn  you,  laugh." 

Mauki  did  his  work  thoroughly,  and  the 
kanakas,  hiding  in  their  houses,  heard  the 
"big  fella  noise"  that  Bunster  made  and 
continued  to  make  for  an  hour  or  more. 

When  Mauki  was  done,  he  carried  the 
boat  compass  and  all  the  rifles  and  ammuni 
tion  down  to  the  cutter,  which  he  pro 
ceeded  to  ballast  with  cases  of  tobacco. 
It  was  while  engaged  in  this  that  a  hideous, 
skinless  thing  came  out  of  the  house  and 
ran  screaming  down  the  beach  till  it  fell 
in  the  sand  and  mowed  and  gibbered  under 


MAUKI 

the  scorching  sun.  Mauki  looked  toward  it 
and  hesitated.  Then  he  went  over  and 
removed  the  head,  which  he  wrapped  in 
a  mat  and  stowed  in  the  stern-locker  of 
the  cutter. 

So  soundly  did  the  kanakas  sleep  through 
that  long  hot  day  that  they  did  not  see  the 
cutter  run  out  through  the  passage  and  head 
south,  close-hauled  on  the  southeast  trade. 
Nor  was  the  cutter  ever  sighted  on  that 
long  tack  to  the  shores  of  Ysabel,  and  dur 
ing  the  tedious  head-beat  from  there  to 
Malaita.  He  landed  at  Port  Adams  with 
a  wealth  of  rifles  and  tobacco  such  as  no 
one  man  had  ever  possessed  before.  But 
he  did  not  stop  there.  He  had  taken  a 
white  man's  head,  and  only  the  bush  could 
shelter  him.  So  back  he  went  to  the  bush- 
villages,  where  he  shot  old  Fanfoa  and  half 
a  dozen  of  the  chief  men,  and  made  himself 
the  chief  over  all  the  villages.  When  his 
father  died,  MaukFs  brother  ruled  in  Port 
Adams,  and,  joined  together,  salt-water 
men  and  bushmen,  the  resulting  combina- 


MAUKI  117 

tion  was  the  strongest  of  the  ten  score 
fighting  tribes  of  Malaita. 

More  than  his  fear  of  the  British  govern 
ment  was  Mauki's  fear  of  the  all-powerful 
Moongleam  Soap  Company;  and  one  day 
a  message  came  up  to  him  in  the  bush, 
reminding  him  that  he  owed  the  Company 
eight  and  one-half  years  of  labor.  He  sent 
back  a  favorable  answer,  and  then  appeared 
the  inevitable  white  man,  the  captain  of 
the  schooner,  the  only  white  man  during 
Mauki's  reign  who  ventured  the  bush  and 
came  out  alive.  This  man  not  only  came 
out,  but  he  brought  with  him  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  in  gold  sovereigns  —  the 
money  price  of  eight  years  and  a  half  of 
labor  plus  the  cost  price  of  certain  rifles 
and  cases  of  tobacco. 

Mauki  no  longer  weighs  one  hundred 
and  ten  pounds.  His  stomach  is  three 
times  its  former  girth,  and  he  has  four 
wives.  He  has  many  other  things  —  rifles 
and  revolvers,  the  handle  of  a  china  cup, 
and  an  excellent  collection  of  bushmen's 


ii8  MAUKI 

heads.  But  more  precious  than  the  entire 
collection  is  another  head,  perfectly  dried 
and  cured,  with  sandy  hair  and  a  yellowish 
beard,  which  is  kept  wrapped  in  the  finest 
of  fibre  lava-lavas.  When  Mauki  goes  to 
war  with  villages  beyond  his  realm,  he  inva 
riably  gets  out  this  head,  and,  alone  in  his 
grass  palace,  contemplates  it  long  and  sol 
emnly.  At  such  times  the  hush  of  death 
falls  on  the  village,  and  not  even  a  pick 
aninny  dares  make  a  noise.  The  head  is 
esteemed  the  most  powerful  devil-devil 
on  Malaita,  and  to  the  possession  of  it  is 
ascribed  all  of  Mauki's  greatness. 


YAH!  YAH!  YAH! 


"YAH!    YAH!    YAH!" 

HE  was  a  whiskey-guzzling  Scotch 
man,  and  he  downed  his  whiskey 
neat,  beginning  with  ^  his  first  tot 
punctually  at  six  in  the  morning,  and 
thereafter  repeating  it  at  regular  intervals 
throughout  the  day  till  bed-time,  which 
was  usually  midnight.  He  slept  but  five 
hours  out  of  twenty-four,  and  for  the  re 
maining  nineteen  hours  he  was  quietly  and 
decently  drunk.  During  the  eight  weeks  I 
spent  with  him  on  Oolong  Atoll,  I  never  saw 
him  draw  a  sober  breath.  In  fact,  his  sleep 
was  so  short  that  he  never  had  time  to 
sober  up.  It  was  the  most  beautiful  and 
orderly  perennial  drunk  I  have  ever  ob 
served. 

McAllister  was  his  name.  He  was  an 
old  man,  and  very  shaky  on  his  pins.  His 
hand  trembled  as  with  a  palsy,  especially 


121 


122  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

noticeable  when  he  poured  his  whiskey, 
though  I  never  knew  him  to  spill  a  drop. 
He  had  been  twenty-eight  years  in  Mela 
nesia,  ranging  from  German  New  Guinea 
to  the  German  Solomons,  and  so  thoroughly 
had  he  become  identified  with  that  portion 
of  the  world,  that  he  habitually  spoke  in 
that  bastard  lingo  called  "beche-de-mer." 
Thus,  in  conversation  with  me,  sun  he 
come  up  meant  sunrise ;  kai-kai  he  stop 
meant  that  dinner  was  served ;  and  belly 
belong  me  walk  about  meant  that  he  was  sick 
at  his  stomach.  He  was  a  small  man, 
and  a  withered  one,  burned  inside  and  out 
side  by  ardent  spirits  and  ardent  sun.  He 
was  a  cinder,  a  bit  of  a  clinker  of  a  man, 
a  little  animated  clinker,  not  yet  quite 
cold,  that  moved  stiffly  and  by  starts  and 
jerks  like  an  automaton.  A  gust  of  wind 
would  have  blown  him  away.  He  weighed 
ninety  pounds. 

But  the  immense  thing  about  him  was 
the  power  with  which  he  ruled.  Oolong 
Atoll  was  one  hundred  and  forty  miles 


"YAH!  YAH!   YAH!"  123 

in  circumference.  One  steered  by  compass 
course  in  its  lagoon.  It  was  populated  by 
five  thousand  Polynesians,  all  strapping 
men  and  women,  many  of  them  standing 
six  feet  in  height  and  weighing  a  couple  of 
hundred  pounds.  Oolong  was  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  nearest  land. 
Twice  a  year  a  little  schooner  called  to 
collect  copra.  The  one  white  man  on 
Oolong  was  McAllister,  petty  trader  and 
unintermittent  guzzler;  and  he  ruled 
Oolong  and  its  six  thousand  savages  with 
an  iron  hand.  He  said  come,  and  they 
came,  go,  and  they  went.  They  never 
questioned  his  will  nor  judgment.  He  was 
cantankerous  as  only  an  aged  Scotchman 
can  be,  and  interfered  continually  in  their 
personal  affairs.  When  Nugu,  the  king's 
daughter,  wanted  to  marry  Haunau  from 
the  other  end  of  the  atoll,  her  father  said 
yes ;  but  McAllister  said  no,  and  the  mar 
riage  never  came  off.  When  the  king 
wanted  to  buy  a  certain  islet  in  the  lagoon 
from  the  chief  priest,  McAllister  said  no. 


i24  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

The  king  was  in  debt  to  the  Company  to 
the  tune  of  180,000  cocoanuts,  and  until 
that  was  paid  he  was  not  to  spend  a  single 
cocoanut  on  anything  else. 

And  yet  the  king  and  his  people  did  not 
love  McAllister.  In  truth,  they  hated  him 
horribly,  and,  to  my  knowledge,  the  whole 
population,  with  the  priests  at  the  head, 
tried  vainly  for  three  months  to  pray  him 
to  death.  The  devil-devils  they  sent  after 
him  were  awe-inspiring,  but  since  McAl 
lister  did  not  believe  in  devil-devils,  they 
were  without  power  over  him.  With 
drunken  Scotchmen  all  signs  fail.  They 
gathered  up  scraps  of  food  which  had 
touched  his  lips,  an  empty  whiskey  bottle, 
a  cocoanut  from  which  he  had  drunk,  and 
even  his  spittle,  and  performed  all  kinds 
of  deviltries  over  them.  But  McAllister 
lived  on.  His  health  was  superb.  He 
never  caught  fever ;  nor  coughs  nor  colds ; 
dysentery  passed  him  by;  and  the  malig 
nant  ulcers  and  vile  skin  diseases  that 
attack  blacks  and  whites  alike  in  that  cli- 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!"  125 

mate  never  fastened  upon  him.  He  must 
have  been  so  saturated  with  alcohol  as  to 
defy  the  lodgment  of  germs.  I  used  to 
imagine  them  falling  to  the  ground  in 
showers  of  microscopic  cinders  as  fast  as 
they  entered  his  whiskey-sodden  aura.  No 
one  loved  him,  not  even  germs,  while  he 
loved  only  whiskey,  and  still  he  lived. 

I  was  puzzled.  I  could  not  understand 
six  thousand  natives  putting  up  with  that 
withered  shrimp  of  a  tyrant.  It  was  a 
miracle  that  he  had  not  died  suddenly  long 
since.  Unlike  the  cowardly  Melanesians, 
the  people  were  high-stomached  and  warlike. 
In  the  big  graveyard,  at  head  and  feet  of 
the  graves,  were  relics  of  past  sanguinary 
history  —  blubber-spades,  rusty  old  bay 
onets  and  cutlasses,  copper  bolts,  rudder- 
irons,  harpoons,  bomb  guns,  bricks  that 
could  have  come  from  nowhere  but  a 
whaler's  trying-out  furnace,  and  old  brass 
pieces  of  the  sixteenth  century  that  verified 
the  traditions  of  the  early  Spanish  naviga 
tors.  Ship  after  ship  had  come  to  grief 


126  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

on  Oolong.  Not  thirty  years  before,  the 
whaler  Blennerdale,  running  into  the  lagoon 
for  repairs,  had  been  cut  off  with  all  hands. 
In  similar  fashion  had  the  crew  of  the 
Gasket,  a  sandalwood  trader,  perished. 
There  was  a  big  French  bark,  the  Toulon, 
becalmed  off  the  atoll,  which  the  islanders 
boarded  after  a  sharp  tussle  and  wrecked 
in  the  Lipau  Passage,  the  captain  and  a 
handful  of  sailors  escaping  in  the  long 
boat.  Then  there  were  the  Spanish  pieces, 
which  told  of  the  loss  of  one  of  the  early 
explorers.  All  this,  of  the  vessels  named, 
is  a  matter  of  history,  and  is  to  be  found 
in  the  South  Pacific  Sailing  Directory.  But 
that  there  was  other  history,  unwritten, 
I  was  yet  to  learn.  In  the  meantime  I 
puzzled  why  six  thousand  primitive  savages 
let  one  degenerate  Scotch  despot  live. 

One  hot  afternoon  McAllister  and  I  sat 
on  the  veranda  looking  out  over  the  lagoon, 
with  all  its  wonder  of  jewelled  colors.  At 
our  backs,  across  the  hundred  yards  of 
palm-studded  sand,  the  outer  surf  roared 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!"  127 

on  the  reef.  It  was  dreadfully  warm.  We 
were  in  4°  south  latitude  and  the  sun  was 
directly  overhead,  having  crossed  the  Line 
a  few  days  before  on  its  journey  south. 
There  was  no  wind  —  not  even  a  catspaw. 
The  season  of  the  southeast  trade  was 
drawing  to  an  early  close,  and  the  north 
west  monsoon  had  not  yet  begun  to  blow. 

"They  can't  dance  worth  a  damn,"  said 
McAllister. 

I  had  happened  to  mention  that  the 
Polynesian  dances  were  superior  to  the 
Papuan,  and  this  McAllister  had  denied, 
for  no  other  reason  than  his  cantankerous- 
ness.  But  it  was  too  hot  to  argue,  and  I 
said  nothing.  Besides,  I  had  never  seen 
the  Oolong  people  dance. 

"I'll  prove  it  to  you,"  he  announced, 
beckoning  to  the  black  New  Hanover  boy, 
a  labor  recruit,  who  served  as  cook  and 
general  house  servant.  "Hey,  you,  boy, 
you  tell  'm  one  fella  king  come  along  me." 

The  boy  departed,  and  back  came  the 
prime  minister,  perturbed,  ill  at  ease,  and 


128  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

garrulous  with  apologetic  explanation.  In 
short,  the  king  slept,  and  was  not  to  be 
disturbed. 

"King  he  plenty  strong  fella  sleep," 
was  his  final  sentence. 

McAllister  was  in  such  a  rage  that  the 
prime  minister  incontinently  fled,  to  return 
with  the  king  himself.  They  were  a  mag 
nificent  pair,  the  king  especially,  who  must 
have  been  all  of  six  feet  three  inches  in 
height.  His  features  had  the  eagle-like 
quality  that  is  so  frequently  found  in  those 
of  the  North  American  Indian.  He  had 
been  both  moulded  and  born  to  rule.  His 
eyes  flashed  as  he  listened,  but  right  meekly 
he  obeyed  McAllister's  command  to  fetch 
a  couple  of  hundred  of  the  best  dancers, 
male  and  female,  in  the  village.  And  dance 
they  did,  for  two  mortal  hours,  under  that 
broiling  sun.  They  did  not  love  him  for 
it,  and  little  he  cared,  in  the  end  dismissing 
them  with  abuse  and  sneers. 

The  abject  servility  of  those  magnificent 
savages  was  terrifying.  How  could  it  be  ? 


"YAH!   YAH!   YAH!"  129 

What  was  the  secret  of  his  rule  ?  More 
and  more  I  puzzled  as  the  days  went  by, 
and  though  I  observed  perpetual  examples 
of  his  undisputed  sovereignty,  never  a 
clew  was  there  as  to  how  it  was. 

One  day  I  happened  to  speak  of  my  dis 
appointment  in  failing  to  trade  for  a  beauti 
ful  pair  of  orange  cowries.  The  pair  was 
worth  five  pounds  in  Sydney  if  it  was  worth 
a  cent.  I  had  offered  two  hundred  sticks 
of  tobacco  to  the  owner,  who  had  held  out 
for  three  hundred.  When  I  casually  men 
tioned  the  situation,  McAllister  imme 
diately  sent  for  the  man,  took  the  shells 
from  him,  and  turned  them  over  to  me. 
Fifty  sticks  were  all  he  permitted  me  to 
pay  for  them.  The  man  accepted  the 
tobacco  and  seemed  overjoyed  at  getting 
off  so  easily.  As  for  me,  I  resolved  to  keep 
a  bridle  on  my  tongue  in  the  future.  And 
still  I  mulled  over  the  secret  of  McAllister's 
power.  I  even  went  to  the  extent  of  asking 
him  directly,  but  all  he  did  was  to  cock  one 
eye,  look  wise,  and  take  another  drink. 


130  "YAH!  YAH!   YAH!" 

One  night  I  was  out  fishing  in  the  lagoon 
with  Oti,  the  man  who  had  been  mulcted 
of  the  cowries.  Privily,  I  had  made  up  to 
him  an  additional  hundred  and  fifty  sticks, 
and  he  had  come  to  regard  me  with  a  re 
spect  that  was  almost  veneration,  which 
was  curious,  seeing  that  he  was  an  old 
man,  twice  my  age  at  least. 

"What  name  you  fella  kanaka  all  the 
same  pickaninny  ?"  I  began  on  him.  "This 
fella  trader  he  one  fella.  You  fella  kanaka 
plenty  fella  too  much.  You  fella  kanaka 
just  like  'm  dog  —  plenty  fright  along  that 
fella  trader.  He  no  eat  you  fella.  He 
no  get  'nT  teeth  along  him.  What  name 
you  too  much  fright  ?" 

"S'pose  plenty  fella  kanaka  kill  'm  ?" 
he  asked. 

"He  die,"  I  retorted.  "You  fella  kanaka 
kill  'm  plenty  fella  white  man  long  time 
before.  What  name  you  fright  this  fella 
white  man  ?" 

"Yes,  we  kill  'm  plenty,"  was  his  answer. 
"My  word !  Any  amount !  Long  time 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!"  131 

before.  One  time,  me  young  fella  too 
much,  one  big  fella  ship  he  stop  outside. 
Wind  he  no  blow.  Plenty  fella  kanaka  we 
get  'm  canoe,  plenty  fella  canoe,  we  go 
catch  'm  that  fella  ship.  My  word  —  we 
catch  'm  big  fella  fight.  Two,  three  white 
men  shoot  like  hell.  We  no  fright.  We 
come  alongside,  we  go  up  side,  plenty  fella, 
maybe  I  think  fifty-ten  (five  hundred). 
One  fella  white  Mary  (woman)  belong  that 
fella  ship.  Never  before  I  see  'm  white 
Mary.  Bime  by  plenty  white  man  finish. 
One  fella  skipper  he  no  die.  Five  fella, 
six  fella  white  man  no  die.  Skipper  he 
sing  out.  Some  fella  white  man  he  fight. 
Some  fella  white  man  he  lower  away  boat. 
After  that,  all  together  over  the  side  they 
go.  Skipper  he  sling  white  Mary  down. 
After  that  they  washee  (row)  strong  fella 
plenty  too  much.  Father  belong  me,  that 
time  he  strong  fella.  He  throw  'm  one  fella 
spear.  That  fella  spear  he  go  in  one  side 
that  white  Mary.  He  no  stop.  My  word, 
he  go  out  other  side  that  fella  Mary.  She 


132  "YAH!   YAH!   YAH!" 

finish.     Me  no  fright.     Plenty  kanaka  too 
much  no  fright." 

Old  Oti's  pride  had  been  touched,  for  he 
suddenly  stripped  down  his  lava-lava  and 
showed  me  the  unmistakable  scar  of  a  bullet. 
Before  I  could  speak,  his  line  ran  out  sud 
denly.  He  checked  it  and  attempted  to 
haul  in,  but  found  that  the  fish  had  run 
around  a  coral  branch.  Casting  a  look  of 
reproach  at  me  for  having  beguiled  him  from 
his  watchfulness,  he  went  over  the  side,  feet 
first,  turning  over  after  he  got  under  and 
following  his  line  down  to  bottom.  The 
water  was  ten  fathoms.  I  leaned  over  and 
watched  the  play  of  his  feet,  growing  dim 
and  dimmer,  as  they  stirred  the  wan  phos 
phorescence  into  ghostly  fire's.  Ten  fathoms 
—  sixty  feet  —  it  was  nothing  to  him,  an  old 
man,  compared  with  the  value  of  a  hook  and 
line.  After  what  seemed  five  minutes, 
though  it  could  not  have  been  more  than 
a  minute,  I  saw  him  flaming  whitely  up 
ward.  He  broke  surface  and  dropped  a  ten- 
pound  rock  cod  into  the  canoe,  the  line  and 


"YAH!   YAH!   YAH!"  133 

hook  intact,  the  latter  still  fast  in  the  fish's 
mouth. 

"It  may  be,"  I  said  remorselessly. 
"You  no  fright  long  ago.  You  plenty  fright 
now  along  that  fella  trader." 

"Yes,  plenty  fright,"  he  confessed,  with 
an  air  of  dismissing  the  subject.  For  half 
an  hour  we  pulled  up  our  lines  and  flung 
them  out  in  silence.  Then  small  fish-sharks 
began  to  bite,  and  after  losing  a  hook  apiece, 
we  hauled  in  and  waited  for  the  sharks  to  go 
their  way. 

"I  speak  you  true,"  Oti  broke  into  speech, 
"  then  you  savve  we  fright  now." 

I  lighted  up  my  pipe  and  waited,  and  the 
story  that  Oti  told  me  in  atrocious  beche-de- 
mer  I  here  turn  into  proper  English.  Other 
wise,  in  spirit  and  order  of  narrative,  the 
tale  is  as  it  fell  from  Oti's  lips. 

"  It  was  after  that  that  we  were  very  proud. 
We  had  fought  many  times  with  the  strange 
white  men  who  live  upon  the  sea,  and  always 
we  had  beaten  them.  A  few  of  us  were 
killed,  but  what  was  that  compared  with 


134  "YAH!   YAH!  YAH!" 

the  stores  of  wealth  of  a  thousand  thousand 
kinds  that  we  found  on  the  ships  ?  And 
then  one  day,  maybe  twenty  years  ago,  or 
twenty-five,  there  came  a  schooner  right 
through  the  passage  and  into  the  lagoon. 
It  was  a  large  schooner  with  three  masts. 
She  had  five  white  men  and  maybe  forty 
boat's  crew,  black  fellows  from  New  Guinea 
and  New  Britain ;  and  she  had  come  to  fish 
beche-de-mer.  She  lay  at  anchor  across  the 
lagoon  from  here,  at  Pauloo,  and  her  boats 
scattered  out  everywhere,  making  camps 
on  the  beaches  where  they  cured  the  beche- 
de-mer.  This  made  them  weak  by  dividing 
them,  for  those  who  fished  here  and  those 
on  the  schooner  at  Pauloo  were  fifty  miles 
apart,  and  there  were  others  farther  away 
still. 

"Our  king  and  headmen  held  council, 
and  I  was  one  in  the  canoe  that  paddled 
all  afternoon  and  all  night  across  the  lagoon, 
bringing  word  to  the  people  of  Pauloo  that 
in  the  morning  we  would  attack  the  fishing 
camps  at  the  one  time  and  that  it  was 


"YAH!   YAH!   YAH!"  135 

for  them  to  take  the  schooner.  We  who 
brought  the  word  were  tired  with  the  pad 
dling,  but  we  took  part  in  the  attack.  On 
the  schooner  were  two  white  men,  the  skip 
per  and  the  second  mate,  with  half  a  dozen 
black  boys.  The  skipper  with  three  boys 
we  caught  on  shore  and  killed,  but  first 
eight  of  us  the  skipper  killed  with  his  two 
revolvers.  We  fought  close  together,  you 
see,  at  hand  grapples. 

"The  noise  of  our  fighting  told  the  mate 
what  was  happening,  and  he  put  food  and 
water  and  a  sail  in  the  small  dingy,  which 
was  so  small  that  it  was  no  more  than 
twelve  feet  long.  We  came  down  upon  the 
schooner,  a  thousand  men,  covering  the 
lagoon  with  our  canoes.  Also,  we  were 
blowing  conch-shells,  singing  war-songs,  and 
striking  the  sides  of  the  canoes  with  our 
paddles.  What  chance  had  one  white  man 
and  three  black  boys  against  us  ?  No  chance 
at  all,  and  the  mate  knew  it. 

"White  men  are  hell.  I  have  watched 
them  much,  and  I  am  an  old  man  now,  and 


136  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

I  understand  at  last  why  the  white  men  have 
taken  to  themselves  all  the  islands  in  the  sea. 
It  is  because  they  are  hell.  Here  are  you 
in  the  canoe  with  me.  You  are  hardly  more 
than  a  boy.  You  are  not  wise,  for  each  day 
I  tell  you  many  things  you  do  not  know. 
When  I  was  a  little  pickaninny,  I  knew  more 
about  fish  and  the  ways  of  fish  than  you 
know  now.  I  am  an  old  man,  but  I  swim 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  lagoon,  and  you 
cannot  follow  me.  What  are  you  good  for, 
anyway  ?  I  do  not  know,  except  to  fight. 
I  have  never  seen  you  fight,  yet  I  know  that 
you  are  like  your  brothers  and  that  you  will 
fight  like  hell.  Also,  you  are  a  fool,  like 
your  brothers.  You  do  not  know  when  you 
are  beaten.  You  will  fight  until  you  die, 
and  then  it  will  be  too  late  to  know  that  you 
are  beaten. 

"Now  behold  what  this  mate  did.  As 
we  came  down  upon  him,  covering  the  sea 
and  blowing  our  conches,  he  put  off  from 
the  schooner  in  the  small  boat,  along  with 
the  three  black  boys,  and  rowed  for  the 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!"  137 

passage.  There  again  he  was  a  fool,  for 
no  wise  man  would  put  out  to  sea  in  so  small 
a  boat.  The  sides  of  it  were  not  four  inches 
above  the  water.  Twenty  canoes  went 
after  him,  rilled  with  two  hundred  young 
men.  We  paddled  five  fathoms  while  his 
black  boys  were  rowing  one  fathom.  He 
had  no  chance,  but  he  was  a  fool.  He  stood 
up  in  the  boat  with  a  rifle,  and  he  shot  many 
times.  He  was  not  a  good  shot,  but  as  we 
drew  close  many  of  us  were  wounded  and 
killed.  But  still  he  had  no  chance. 

"I  remember  that  all  the  time  he  was 
smoking  a  cigar.  When  we  were  forty  feet 
away  and  coming  fast,  he  dropped  the  rifle, 
lighted  a  stick  of  dynamite  with  the  cigar, 
and  threw  it  at  us.  He  lighted  another 
and  another,  and  threw  them  at  us  very 
rapidly,  many  of  them.  I  know  now  that 
he  must  have  split  the  ends  of  the  fuses  and 
stuck  in  match-heads,  because  they  lighted 
so  quickly.  Also,  the  fuses  were  very  short. 
Sometimes  the  dynamite  sticks  went  off  in 
the  air,  but  most  of  them  went  off  in  the 


138  "YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

canoes.  And  each  time  they  went  off  in 
a  canoe,  that  canoe  was  finished.  Of  the 
twenty  canoes,  the  half  were  smashed  to 
pieces.  The  canoe  I  was  in  was  so  smashed, 
and  likewise  the  two  men  who  sat  next 
to  me.  The  dynamite  fell  between  them. 
The  other  canoes  turned  and  ran  away. 
Then  that  mate  yelled,  'Yah  !  Yah  !  Yah  !' 
at  us.  Also  he  went  at  us  again  with  his 
rifle,  so  that  many  were  killed  through  the 
back  as  they  fled  away.  And  all  the  time 
the  black  boys  in  the  boat  went  on  rowing. 
You  see,  I  told  you  true,  that  mate  was  hell. 
"Nor  was  that  all.  Before  he  left  the 
schooner,  he  set  her  on  fire,  and  fixed  up  all 
the  powder  and  dynamite  so  that  it  would 
go  off  at  one  time.  There  were  hundreds 
of  us  on  board,  trying  to  put  out  the  fire, 
heaving  up  water  from  overside,  when  the 
schooner  blew  up.  So  that  all  we  had 
fought  for  was  lost  to  us,  besides  many  more 
of  us  being  killed.  Sometimes,  even  now, 
in  my  old  age,  I  have  bad  dreams  in  which 
I  hear  that  mate  yell,  'Yah  !  Yah  !  Yah  !' 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!"  139 

In  a  voice  of  thunder  he  yells,  'Yah  !  Yah  ! 
Yah  !'  But  all  those  in  the  fishing  camps 
were  killed. 

"The  mate  went  out  of  the  passage  in  his 
little  boat,  and  that  was  the  end  of  him  we 
made  sure,  for  how  could  so  small  a  boat, 
with  four  men  in  it,  live  on  the  ocean  ? 
A  month  went  by,  and  then,  one  morning, 
between  two  rain  squalls,  a  schooner  sailed 
in  through  our  passage  and  dropped  anchor 
before  the  village.  The  king  and  the  head 
men  made  big  talk,  and  it  was  agreed  that 
we  would  take  the  schooner  in  two  or  three 
days.  In  the  meantime,  as  it  was  our 
custom  always  to  appear  friendly,  we  went 
off  to  her  in  canoes,  bringing  strings  of 
cocoanuts,  fowls,  and  pigs,  to  trade.  But 
when  we  were  alongside,  many  canoes  of  us, 
the  men  on  board  began  to  shoot  us  with 
rifles,  and  as  we  paddled  away  I  saw  the 
mate  who  had  gone  to  sea  in  the  little  boat 
spring  upon  the  rail  and  dance  and  yell, 
'Yah!  Yah!  Yah!' 

"That  afternoon  they  landed  from  the 


"YAH!  YAH!  YAH!" 

schooner  in  three  small  boats  filled  with 
white  men.  They  went  right  through  the 
village,  shooting  every  man  they  saw.  Also 
they  shot  the  fowls  and  pigs.  We  who 
were  not  killed  got  away  in  canoes  and  pad 
dled  out  into  the  lagoon.  Looking  back, 
we  could  see  all  the  houses  on  fire.  Late  in 
the  afternoon  we  saw  many  canoes  coming 
from  Nihi,  which  is  the  village  near  the  Nihi 
Passage  in  the  northeast.  They  were  all 
that  were  left,  and  like  us  their  village  had 
been  burned  by  a  second  schooner  that  had 
come  through  Nihi  Passage. 

"We  stood  on  in  the  darkness  to  the  west 
ward  for  Pauloo,  but  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  we  heard  women  wailing  and  then  we 
ran  into  a  big  fleet  of  canoes.  They  were 
all  that  were  left  of  Pauloo,  which  likewise 
was  in  ashes,  for  a  third  schooner  had  come 
in  through  the  Pauloo  Passage.  You  see, 
that  mate,  with  his  black  boys,  had  not  been 
drowned.  He  had  made  the  Solomon  Is 
lands,  and  there  told  his  brothers  of  what 
we  had  done  in  Oolong.  And  all  his 


"YAH!   YAH!  YAH!"  141 

brothers  had  said  they  would  come  and 
punish  us,  and  there  they  were  in  the  three 
schooners,  and  our  three  villages  were  wiped 
out. 

"And  what  was  there  for  us  to  do  ?  In 
the  morning  the  two  schooners  from  wind 
ward  sailed  down  upon  us  in  the  middle  of 
the  lagoon.  The  trade-wind  was  blowing 
fresh,  and  by  scores  of  canoes  they  ran  us 
down.  And  the  rifles  never  ceased  talking. 
We  scattered  like  flying-fish  before  the 
bonita,  and  there  were  so  many  of  us  that 
we  escaped  by  thousands,  this  way  and  that, 
to  the  islands  on  the  rim  of  the  atoll. 

"And  thereafter  the  schooners  hunted 
us  up  and  down  the  lagoon.  In  the  night 
time  we  slipped  past  them.  But  the  next 
day,  or  in  two  days  or  three  days,  the 
schooners  would  be  coming  back,  hunting  us 
toward  the  other  end  of  the  lagoon.  And  so 
it  went.  We  no  longer  counted  nor  remem 
bered  our  dead.  True,  we  were  many  and 
they  were  few.  But  what  could  we  do  ?  I 
was  in  one  of  the  twenty  canoes  filled  with 


142  "YAH!  YAH!   YAH!" 

men  who  were  not  afraid  to  die.  We 
attacked  the  smallest  schooner.  They  shot 
us  down  in  heaps.  They  threw  dynamite 
into  the  canoes,  and  when  the  dynamite 
gave  out,  they  threw  hot  water  down  upon 
us.  And  the  rifles  never  ceased  talking. 
And  those  whose  canoes  were  smashed  were 
shot  as  they  swam  away.  And  the  mate 
danced  up  and  down  upon  the  cabin-top  and 
yelled,  'Yah  !  Yah  !  Yah  ! ' 

"Every  house  on  every  smallest  island 
was  burned.  Not  a  pig  nor  a  fowl  was  left 
alive.  Our  wells  were  defiled  with  the 
bodies  of  the  slain,  or  else  heaped  high  with 
coral  rock.  We  were  twenty-five  thousand 
on  Oolong  before  the  three  schooners  came. 
To-day  we  are  five  thousand.  After  the 
schooners  left,  we  were  but  three  thousand, 
as  you  shall  see. 

"At  last  the  three  schooners  grew  tired 
of  chasing  us  back  and  forth.  So  they  went, 
the  three  of  them,  to  Nihi,  in  the  northeast. 
And  then  they  drove  us  steadily  to  the  west. 
Their  nine  boats  were  in  the  water  as  well. 


"YAH!  YAH!   YAH!"  143 

They  beat  up  every  island  as  they  moved 
along.  They  drove  us,  drove  us,  drove  us 
day  by  day.  And  every  night  the  three 
schooners  and  the  nine  boats  made  a  chain 
of  watchfulness  that  stretched  across  the 
lagoon  from  rim  to  rim,  so  that  we  could  not 
escape  back. 

"They  could  not  drive  us  forever  that 
way,  for  the  lagoon  was  only  so  large,  and  at 
last  all  of  us  that  yet  lived  were  driven  upon 
the  last  sand-bank  to  the  west.  Beyond 
lay  the  open  sea.  There  wrere  ten  thousand 
of  us,  and  we  covered  the  sand-bank  from 
the  lagoon  edge  to  the  pounding  surf  on 
the  other  side.  No  one  could  lie  down. 
There  was  no  room.  We  stood  hip  to  hip 
and  shoulder  to  shoulder.  Two  days  they 
kept  us  there,  and  the  mate  would  climb 
up  in  the  rigging  to  mock  us  and  yell,  'Yah  ! 
Yah  !  Yah  ! '  till  we  were  well  sorry  that  we 
had  ever  harmed  him  or  his  schooner  a 
month  before.  We  had  no  food,  and  we 
stood  on  our  feet  two  days  and  nights.  The 
little  babies  died,  and  the  old  and  weak 


144  "YAH!   YAH!   YAH!" 

died,  and  the  wounded  died.  And  worst 
of  all,  we  had  no  water  to  quench  our  thirst, 
and  for  two  days  the  sun  beat  down  on  us, 
and  there  was  no  shade.  Many  men  and 
women  waded  out  into  the  ocean  and  were 
drowned,  the  surf  casting  their  bodies  back 
on  the  beach.  And  there  came  a  pest  of  flies. 
Some  men  swam  to  the  sides  of  the  schooners, 
but  they  were  shot  to  the  last  one.  And  we 
that  lived  were  very  sorry  that  in  our  pride 
we  tried  to  take  the  schooner  with  the  three 
masts  that  came  to  fish  for  beche-de-mer. 

"On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  came 
the  skippers  of  the  three  schooners  and  that 
mate  in  a  small  boat.  They  carried  rifles, 
all  of  them,  and  revolvers,  and  they  made 
talk.  It  was  only  that  they  were  weary 
of  killing  us  that  they  had  stopped,  they 
told  us.  And  we  told  them  that  we  were 
sorry,  that  never  again  would  we  harm  a 
white  man,  and  in  token  of  our  submission 
we  poured  sand  upon  our  heads.  And  all 
the  women  and  children  set  up  a  great  wail 
ing  for  water,  so  that  for  some  time  no  man 


"YAH!   YAH!   YAH!"  145 

could  make  himself  heard.  Then  we  were 
told  our  punishment.  We  must  fill  the 
three  schooners  with  copra  and  beche-de-mer. 
And  we  agreed,  for  we  wanted  water,  and 
our  hearts  were  broken,  and  we  knew  that 
we  were  children  at  fighting  when  we  fought 
with  white  men  who  fight  like  hell.  And 
when  all  the  talk  was  finished,  the  mate 
stood  up  and  mocked  us,  and  yelled,  'Yah  ! 
Yah  !  Yah  ! '  After  that  we  paddled  away  in 
our  canoes  and  sought  water. 

"And  for  weeks  we  toiled  at  catching 
beche-de-mer  and  curing  it,  in  gathering  the 
cocoanuts  and  turning  them  into  copra. 
By  day  and  night  the  smoke  rose  in  clouds 
from  all  the  beaches  of  all  the  islands  of 
Oolong  as  we  paid  the  penalty  of  our  wrong 
doing.  For  in  those  days  of  death  it  was 
burned  clearly  on  all  our  brains  that  it  was 
very  wrong  to  harm  a  white  man. 

"By  and  by,  the  schooners  full  of  copra 
and  beche-de-mer  and  our  trees  empty  of 
cocoanuts,  the  three  skippers  and  that  mate 
called  us  all  together  for  a  big  talk.  And 


I46  "YAH!   YAH!   YAH!" 

they  said  they  were  very  glad  that  we  had 
learned  our  lesson,  and  we  said  for  the  ten- 
thousandth  time  that  we  were  sorry  and  that 
we  would  not  do  it  again.  Also,  we  poured 
sand  upon  our  heads.  Then  the  skippers 
said  that  it  was  all  very  well,  but  just  to 
show  us  that  they  did  not  forget  us,  they 
would  send  a  devil-devil  that  we  would 
never  forget  and  that  we  would  always  re 
member  any  time  we  might  feel  like  harming 
a  white  man.  After  that  the  mate  mocked 
us  one  more  time  and  yelled,  'Yah  !  Yah  ! 
Yah  !'  Then  six  of  our  men,  whom  we 
thought  long  dead,  were  put  ashore  from 
one  of  the  schooners,  and  the  schooners 
hoisted  their  sails  and  ran  out  through  the 
passage  for  the  Solomons. 

"The  six  men  who  were  put  ashore  were 
the  first  to  catch  the  devil-devil  the  skippers 
sent  back  after  us." 

"A  great  sickness  came,"  I  interrupted, 
for  I  recognized  the  trick.  The  schooner 
had  had  measles  on  board,  and  the  six  pris 
oners  had  been  deliberately  exposed  to  it. 


"YAH!   YAH!   YAH!"  147 

"Yes,  a  great  sickness,"  Oti  went  on. 
"It  was  a  powerful  devil-devil.  The  oldest 
man  had  never  heard  of  the  like.  Those  of 
our  priests  that  yet  lived  we  killed  because 
they  could  not  overcome  the  devil-devil. 
The  sickness  spread.  I  have  said  that  there 
were  ten  thousand  of  us  that  stood  hip  to 
hip  and  shoulder  to  shoulder  on  the  sand 
bank.  When  the  sickness  left  us,  there  were 
three  thousand  yet  alive.  Also,  having 
made  all  our  cocoanuts  into  copra,  there 
was  a  famine. 

"That  fella  trader,"  Oti  concluded,  "he 
like  'm  that  much  dirt.  He  like  'm  clam 
he  die  kai-kai  (meat)  he  stop,  stink  'm  any 
amount.  He  like  'm  one  fella  dog,  one  sick 
fella  dog  plenty  fleas  stop  along  him.  We 
no  fright  along  that  fella  trader.  We  fright 
because  he  white  man.  We  savve  plenty 
too  much  no  good  kill  white  man.  That 
one  fella  sick  dog  trader  he  plenty  brother 
stop  along  him,  white  men  like  ?m  you  fight 
like  hell.  We  no  fright  that  damn  trader. 
Some  time  he  made  kanaka  plenty  cross 


i48  "YAH!  YAH!   YAH!" 

along  him  and  kanaka  want  'm  kill  'm, 
kanaka  he  think  devil-devil  and  kanaka 
he  hear  that  fella  mate  sing  out,  'Yah  ! 
Yah  !  Yah  !'  and  kanaka  no  kill  'm." 

Oti  baited  his  hook  with  a  piece  of  squid, 
which  he  tore  with  his  teeth  from  the  live 
and  squirming  monster,  and  hook  and  bait 
sank  in  white  flames  to  the  bottom. 

"Shark  walk  about  he  finish,"  he  said. 
"  I  think  we  catch  'm  plenty  fella  fish." 

His  line  jerked  savagely.  He  pulled  it  in 
rapidly,  hand  under  hand,  and  landed  a 
big  gasping  rock  cod  in  the  bottom  of  the 
canoe. 

"Sun  he  come  up,  I  make  'm  that  dam 
fella  trader  one  present  big  fella  fish,"  said 
Oti. 


THE  HEATHEN 


THE  HEATHEN 

I  MET  him  first  in  a  hurricane;  and 
though  we  had  gone  through  the  hurri 
cane  on  the  same  schooner,  it  was  not 
until  the  schooner  had  gone  to  pieces  under 
us  that  I  first  laid  eyes  on  him.  Without 
doubt  I  had  seen  him  with  the  rest  of  the 
kanaka  crew  on  board,  but  I  had  not  con 
sciously  been  aware  of  his  existence,  for  the 
Petite  Jeanne  was  rather  overcrowded.  In 
addition  to  her  eight  or  ten  kanaka  sea 
men,  her  white  captain,  mate,  and  super 
cargo,  and  her  six  cabin  passengers,  she 
sailed  from  Rangiroa  with  something  like 
eighty-five  deck  passengers  —  Paumotans 
and  Tahitians,  men,  women,  and  children 
each  with  a  trade  box,  to  say  nothing  of 
sleeping-mats,  blankets,  and  clothes-bundles. 
The  pearling  season  in  the  Paumotus  was 
over,  and  all  hands  were  returning  to  Tahiti. 


152  THE  HEATHEN 

The  six  of  us  cabin  passengers  were  pearl- 
buyers.  Two  were  Americans,  one  was 
Ah  Choon  (the  whitest  Chinese  I  have  ever 
known),  one  was  a  German,  one  was  a  Polish 
Jew,  and  I  completed  the  half  dozen. 

It  had  been  a  prosperous  season.  Not  one 
of  us  had  cause  for  complaint,  nor  one  of  the 
eighty-five  deck  passengers  either.  All  had 
done  well,  and  all  were  looking  forward  to 
a  rest-off  and  a  good  time  in  Papeete. 

Of  course,  the  Petite  Jeanne  was  over 
loaded.  She  was  only  seventy  tons,  and 
she  had  no  right  to  carry  a  tithe  of  the  mob 
she  had  on  board.  Beneath  her  hatches  she 
was  crammed  and  jammed  with  pearl-shell 
and  copra.  Even  the  trade  room  was  packed 
full  with  shell.  It  was  a  miracle  that  the 
sailors  could  work  her.  There  was  no 
moving  about  the  decks.  They  simply 
climbed  back  and  forth  along  the  rails. 

In  the  night-time  they  walked  upon 
the  sleepers,  who  carpeted  the  deck,  I'll 
swear,  two  deep.  Oh  !  and  there  were  pigs 
and  chickens  on  deck,  and  sacks  of  yams, 


THE  HEATHEN  153 

while  every  conceivable  place  was  festooned 
with  strings  of  drinking  cocoanuts  and 
bunches  of  bananas.  On  both  sides,  be 
tween  the  fore  and  main  shrouds,  guys  had 
been  stretched,  just  low  enough  for  the  fore- 
boom  to  swing  clear ;  and  from  each  of  these 
guys  at  least  fifty  bunches  of  bananas  were 
suspended. 

It  promised  to  be  a  messy  passage,  even 
if  we  did  make  it  in  the  two  or  three  days 
that  would  have  been  required  if  the  south 
east  trades  had  been  blowing  fresh.  But 
they  weren't  blowing  fresh.  After  the  first 
five  hours  the  trade  died  away  in  a  dozen 
or  so  gasping  fans.  The  calm  continued  all 
that  night  and  the  next  day  —  one  of  those 
glaring,  glassy,  calms,  when  the  very  thought 
of  opening  one's  eyes  to  look  at  it  is  sufficient 
to  cause  a  headache. 

The  second  day  a  man  died  —  an  Easter 
Islander,  one  of  the  best  divers  that  season 
in  the  lagoon.  Smallpox  —  that  is  what  it 
was ;  though  how  smallpox  could  come  on 
board,  when  there  had  been  no  known  cases 


154  THE  HEATHEN 

ashore  when  we  left  Rangiroa,  is  beyond  me. 
There  it  was,  though  —  smallpox,  a  man 
dead,  and  three  others  down  on  their  backs. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done.  We  could 
not  segregate  the  sick,  nor  could  we  care 
for  them.  We  were  packed  like  sardines. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  rot  and  die  — 
that  is,  there  was  nothing  to  do  after  the 
night  that  followed  the  first  death.  On  that 
night,  the  mate,  the  supercargo,  the  Polish 
Jew,  and  four  native  divers  sneaked  away 
in  the  large  whale-boat.  They  were  never 
heard  of  again.  In  the  morning  the  captain 
promptly  scuttled  the  remaining  boats,  and 
there  we  were. 

That  day  there  were  two  deaths ;  the 
following  day  three ;  then  it  jumped  to 
eight.  It  was  curious  to  see  how  we  took  it. 
The  natives,  for  instance,  fell  into  a  condition 
of  dumb,  stolid  fear.  The  captain  —  Ou- 
douse,  his  name  was,  a  Frenchman  —  be 
came  very  nervous  and  voluble.  He  actually 
got  the  twitches.  He  was  a  large,  fleshy 
man,  weighing  at  least  two  hundred  pounds, 


THE  HEATHEN  155 

and  he  quickly  became  a  faithful  representa 
tion  of  a  quivering  jelly-mountain  of  fat. 

The  German,  the  two  Americans,  and 
myself  bought  up  all  the  Scotch  whiskey,  and 
proceeded  to  stay  drunk.  The  theory  was 
beautiful  —  namely,  if  we  kept  ourselves 
soaked  in  alcohol,  every  smallpox  germ  that 
came  into  contact  with  us  would  immedi 
ately  be  scorched  to  a  cinder.  And  the 
theory  worked,  though  I  must  confess  that 
neither  Captain  Oudouse  nor  Ah  Choon  were 
attacked  by  the  disease  either.  The  French 
man  did  not  drink  at  all,  while  Ah  Choon 
restricted  himself  to  one  drink  daily. 

It  was  a  pretty  time.  The  sun,  going 
into  northern  declination,  was  straight  over 
head.  There  was  no  wind,  except  for  fre 
quent  squalls,  which  blew  fiercely  for  from 
five  minutes  to  half  an  hour,  and  wound  up 
by  deluging  us  with  rain.  After  each  squall, 
the  awful  sun  would  come  out,  drawing 
clouds  of  steam  from  the  soaked  decks. 

The  steam  was  not  nice.  It  was  the  vapor 
of  death,  freighted  with  millions  and  millions 


156  THE  HEATHEN 

of  germs.  We  always  took  another  drink 
when  we  saw  it  going  up  from  the  dead  and 
dying,  and  Usually  we  took  two  or  three 
more  drinks,  mixing  them  exceptionally  stiff. 
Also,  we  made  it  a  rule  to  take  an  addi 
tional  several  each  time  they  hove  the  dead 
over  to  the  sharks  that  swarmed  about  us. 

We  had  a  week  of  it,  and  then  the  whiskey 
gave  out.  It  is  just  as  well,  or  I  shouldn't 
be  alive  now.  It  took  a  sober  man  to  pull 
through  what  followed,  as  you  will  agree 
when  I  mention  the  little  fact  that  only  two 
men  did  pull  through.  The  other  man  was 
the  heathen  —  at  least,  that  was  what  I 
heard  Captain  Oudouse  call  him  at  the  mo 
ment  I  first  became  aware  of  the  heathen's 
existence.  But  to  come  back. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  week,  with  the 
whiskey  gone,  and  the  pearl-buyers  sober, 
that  I  happened  to  glance  at  the  barometer 
that  hung  in  the  cabin  companionway.  Its 
normal  register  in  the  Paumotus  was  29.90, 
and  it  was  quite  customary  to  see  it  vacillate 
between  29.85  and  30.00,  or  even  30.05 ; 


THE  HEATHEN  157 

but  to  see  it  as  I  saw  it,  down  to  29.62,  was 
sufficient  to  sober  the  most  drunken  pearl- 
buyer  that  ever  incinerated  smallpox  mi 
crobes  in  Scotch  whiskey. 

I  called  Captain  Oudouse's  attention  to  it, 
only  to  be  informed  that  he  had  watched  it 
going  down  for  several  hours.  There  was 
little  to  do,  but  that  little  he  did  very  well, 
considering  the  circumstances.  He  took  off 
the  light  sails,  shortened  right  down  to  storm 
canvas,  spread  life-lines,  and  waited  for  the 
wind.  His  mistake  lay  in  what  he  did  after 
the  wind  came.  He  hove  to  on  the  port 
tack,  which  was  the  right  thing  to  do  south 
of  the  Equator,  if  —  and  there  was  the  rub 
—  //  one  were  not  in  the  direct  path  of  the 
hurricane. 

We  were  in  the  direct  path.  I  could  see 
that  by  the  steady  increase  of  the  wind  and 
the  equally  steady  fall  of  the  barometer. 
I  wanted  him  to  turn  and  run  with  the  wind 
on  the  port  quarter  until  the  barometer 
ceased  falling,  and  then  to  heave  to.  We 
argued  till  he  was  reduced  to  hysteria,  but 


i $8  THE  HEATHEN 

budge  he  would  not.  The  worst  of  it  was 
that  I  could  not  get  the  rest  of  the  pearl- 
buyers  to  back  me  up.  Who  was  I,  anyway, 
to  know  more  about  the  sea  and  its  ways 
than  a  properly  qualified  captain  ?  was  what 
was  in  their  minds,  I  knew. 

Of  course  the  sea  rose  with  the  wind 
frightfully ;  and  I  shall  never  forget  the 
first  three  seas  the  Petite  Jeanne  shipped. 
She  had  fallen  off,  as  vessels  do  at  times  when 
hove  to,  and  the  first  sea  made  a  clean  breach. 
The  life-lines  were  only  for  the  strong  and 
well,  and  little  good  were  they  even  for 
them  when  the  women  and  children,  the 
bananas  and  cocoanuts,  the  pigs  and  trade 
boxes,  the  sick  and  the  dying,  were  swept 
along  in  a  solid,  screeching,  groaning  mass. 

The  second  sea  filled  the  Petite  Jeanne's 
decks  flush  with  the  rails ;  and,  as  her  stern 
sank  down  and  her  bow  tossed  skyward,  all 
the  miserable  dunnage  of  life  and  luggage 
poured  aft.  It  was  a  human  torrent.  They 
came  head-first,  feet-first,  sidewise,  rolling 
over  and  over,  twisting,  squirming,  writhing, 


THE   HEATHEN  159 

and  crumpling  up.  Now  and  again  one 
caught  a  grip  on  a  stanchion  or  a  rope ;  but 
the  weight  of  the  bodies  behind  tore  such 
grips  loose. 

One  man  I  noticed  fetch  up,  head  on 
and  square  on,  with  the  starboard-bitt. 
His  head  cracked  like  an  egg.  I  saw  what 
was  coming,  sprang  on  top  of  the  cabin,  and 
from  there  into  the  mainsail  itself.  Ah 
Choon  and  one  of  the  Americans  tried  to 
follow  me,  but  I  was  one  jump  ahead  of  them. 
The  American  was  swept  away  and  over  the 
stern  like  a  piece  of  chaff.  Ah  Choon  caught 
a  spoke  of  the  wheel,  and  swung  in  behind  it. 
But  a  strapping  Raratonga  vahine  (woman) 
—  she  must  have  weighed  two  hundred  and 
fifty  —  brought  up  against  him,  and  got  an 
arm  around  his  neck.  He  clutched  the 
kanaka  steersman  with  his  other  hand ; 
and  just  at  that  moment  the  schooner  flung 
down  to  starboard. 

The  rush  of  bodies  and  sea  that  was 
coming  along  the  port  runway  between 
the  cabin  and  the  rail  turned  abruptly  and 


160  THE  HEATHEN 

poured  to  starboard.  Away  they  went  — 
vahine,  Ah  Choon,  and  steersman ;  and  I 
swear  I  saw  Ah  Choon  grin  at  me  with 
philosophic  resignation  as  he  cleared  the 
rail  and  went  under. 

The  third  sea--  the  biggest  of  the  three 
—  did  not  do  so  much  damage.  By  the 
time  it  arrived  nearly  everybody  was  in 
the  rigging.  On  deck  perhaps  a  dozen 
gasping,  half-drowned,  and  half-stunned 
wretches  were  rolling  about  or  attempting 
to  crawl  into  safety.  They  went  by  the 
board,  as  did  the  wreckage  of  the  two 
remaining  boats.  The  other  pearl-buyers 
and  myself,  between  seas,  managed  to  get 
about  fifteen  women  and  children  into  the 
cabin,  and  battened  down.  Little  good 
it  did  the  poor  creatures  in  the  end. 

Wind  ?  Out  of  all  my  experience  I 
could  not  have  believed  it  possible  for  the 
wind  to  blow  as  it  did.  There  is  no  de 
scribing  it.  How  can  one  describe  a  night 
mare  ?  It  was  the  same  way  with  that 
wind.  It  tore  the  clothes  off  our  bodies. 


THE  HEATHEN  161 

I  say  tore  them  off,  and  I  mean  it.  I  am 
not  asking  you  to  believe  it.  I  am  merely 
telling  something  that  I  saw  and  felt. 
There  are  times  when  I  do  not  believe  it 
myself.  I  went  through  it,  and  that  is 
enough.  One  could  not  face  that  wind 
and  live.  It  was  a  monstrous  thing,  and 
the  most  monstrous  thing  about  it  was  that 
it  increased  and  continued  to  increase. 

Imagine  countless  millions  and  billions 
of  tons  of  sand.  Imagine  this  sand  tearing 
along  at  ninety,  a  hundred,  a  hundred  and 
twenty,  or  any  other  number  of  miles  per 
hour.  Imagine,  further,  this  sand  to  be 
invisible,  impalpable,  yet  to  retain  all  the 
t  weight  and  density  of  sand.  Do  all  this, 
and  you  may  get  a  vague  inkling  of  what 
that  wind  was  like. 

Perhaps  sand  is  not  the  right  comparison. 
Consider  it  mud,  invisible,  impalpable,  but 
heavy  as  mud.  Nay,  it  goes  beyond  that. 
Consider  every  molecule  of  air  to  be  a  mud- 
bank  in  itself.  Then  try  to  imagine  the 
multitudinous  impact  of  mud-banks.  No; 


162  THE  HEATHEN 

it  is  beyond  me.  '  Language  may  be  ade 
quate  to  express  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  life,  but  it  cannot  possibly  express  any 
of  the  conditions  of  so  enormous  a  blast  of 
wind.  It  would  have  been  better  had  I 
stuck  by  my  original  intention  of  not 
attempting  a  description. 

I  will  say  this  much :  The  sea,  which 
had  risen  at  first,  was  beaten  down  by  that 
wind.  More :  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole 
ocean  had  been  sucked  up  in  the  maw  of 
the  hurricane,  and  hurled  on  through  that 
portion  of  space  which  previously  had  been 
occupied  by  the  air. 

Of  course,  our  canvas  had  gone  long 
before.  But  Captain  Oudouse  had  on  the 
Petite  Jeanne  something  I  had  never  before 
seen  on  a  South  Sea  schooner  —  a  sea- 
anchor.  It  was  a  conical  canvas  bag, 
the  mouth  of  which  was  kept  open  by  a 
huge  hoop  of  iron.  The  sea-anchor  was 
bridled  something  like  a  kite,  so  that  it 
bit  into  the  water  as  a  kite  bites  into  the 
air,  but  with  a  difference.  The  sea-anchor 


THE  HEATHEN  163 

remained  just  under  the  surface  of  the 
ocean  in  a  perpendicular  position.  A  long 
line,  in  turn,  connected  it  with  the 
schooner.  As  a  result,  the  Petite  Jeanne 
rode  bow  on  to  the  wind  and  to  what  sea 
there  was. 

The  situation  really  would  have  been 
favorable  had  we  not  been  in  the  path 
of  the  storm.  True,  the  wind  itself  tore 
our  canvas  out  of  the  gaskets,  jerked  out 
our  topmasts,  and  made  a  raffle  of  our 
running-gear,  but  still  we  would  have  come 
through  nicely  had  we  not  been  square  in 
front  of  the  advancing  storm-centre.  That 
was  what  fixed  us.  I  was  in  a  state  of 
stunned,  numbed,  paralysed  collapse  from 
enduring  the  impact  of  the  wind,  and  I 
think  I  was  just  about  ready  to  give  up 
and  die  when  the  centre  smote  us.  The 
blow  we  received  was  an  absolute  lull. 
There  was  not  a  breath  of  air.  The  effect 
on  one  was  sickening. 

Remember  that  for  hours  we  had  been 
at  terrific  muscular  tension,  withstanding 


1 64  THE   HEATHEN 

the  awful  pressure  of  that  wird.  And  then, 
suddenly,  the  pressure  was  removed.  I 
know  that  I  felt  as  though  I  was  about  to 
expand,  to  fly  apart  in  all  directions.  It 
seemed  as  if  every  atom  composing  my  body 
was  repelling  every  other  atom  and  was  on 
the  verge  of  rushing  off  irresistibly  into 
space.  But  that  lasted  only  for  a  moment. 
Destruction  was  upon  us. 

In  the  absence  of  the  wind  and  pressure 
the  sea  rose.  It  jumped,  it  leaped,  it 
soared  straight  toward  the  clouds.  Re 
member,  from  every  point  of  the  compass 
that  inconceivable  wind  was  blowing  in 
toward  the  centre  of  calm.  The  result 
was  that  the  seas  sprang  up  from  every 
point  of  the  compass.  There  was  no  wind 
to  check  them.  They  popped  up  like 
corks  released  from  the  bottom  of  a  pail 
of  water.  There  was  no  system  to  them, 
no  stability.  They  were  hollow,  maniacal 
seas.  They  were  eighty  feet  high  at  the 
least.  They  were  not  seas  at  all.  They 
resembled  no  sea  a  man  had  ever  seen. 


THE  HEATHEN  165 

They  were  splashes,  monstrous  splashes 
—  that  is  all.  Splashes  that  were  eighty 
feet  high.  Eighty  !  They  were  more  than 
eighty.  They  went  over  our  mastheads. 
They  were  spouts,  explosions.  They  were 
drunken.  They  fell  anywhere,  anyhow. 
They  jostled  one  another;  they  collided. 
They  rushed  together  and  collapsed  upon 
one  another,  or  fell  apart  like  a  thousand 
waterfalls  all  at  once.  It  was  no  ocean  any 
man  had  ever  dreamed  of,  that  hurricane 
centre.  It  was  confusion  thrice  confounded. 
It  was  anarchy.  It  was  a  hell-pit  of  sea- 
water  gone  mad. 

The  Petite  Jeanne?  I  don't  know.  The 
heathen  told  me  afterwards  that  he  did 
not  know.  She  was  literally  torn  apart, 
ripped  wide  open,  beaten  into  a  pulp, 
smashed  into  kindling  wood,  annihilated. 
When  I  came  to  I  was  in  the  water,  swim 
ming  automatically,  though  I  was  about 
two-thirds  drowned.  How  I  got  there  I 
had  no  recollection.  I  remembered  seeing 
the  Petite  Jeanne  fly  to  pieces  at  what  must 


i66  THE  HEATHEN 

have  been  the  instant  that  my  own  con 
sciousness  was  buffeted  out  of  me.  But 
there  I  was,  with  nothing  to  do  but  make 
the  best  of  it,  and  in  that  best  there  was 
little  promise.  The  wind  was  blowing 
again,  the  sea  was  much  smaller  and  more 
regular,  and  I  knew  that  I  had  passed 
through  the  centre.  Fortunately,  there 
were  no  sharks  about.  The  hurricane  had 
dissipated  the  ravenous  horde  that  had 
surrounded  the  death  ship  and  fed  off  the 
dead. 

It  was  about  midday  when  the  Petite 
Jeanne  went  to  pieces,  and  it  must  have 
been  two  hours  afterwards  when  I  picked 
up  with  one  of  her  hatch-covers.  Thick 
rain  was  driving  at  the  time ;  and  it  was 
the  merest  chance  that  flung  me  and  the 
hatch-cover  together.  A  short  length  of 
line  was  trailing  from  the  rope  handle; 
and  I  knew  that  I  was  good  for  a  day,  at 
least,  if  the  sharks  did  not  return.  Three 
hours  later,  possibly  a  little  longer,  stick 
ing  close  to  the  cover,  and,  with  closed  eyes, 


THE  HEATHEN  167 

concentrating  my  whole  soul  upon  the 
task  of  breathing  in  enough  air  to  keep  me 
going  and  at  the  same  time  of  avoiding 
breathing  in  enough  water  to  drown  me,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  heard  voices.  The 
rain  had  ceased,  and  wind  and  sea  were 
easing  marvellously.  Not  twenty  feet 
away  from  me,  on  another  hatch-cover, 
were  Captain  Oudouse  and  the  heathen. 
They  were  fighting  over  the  possession  of 
the  cover  —  at  least,  the  Frenchman  was. 

"Pai'en  noir!"  I  heard  him  scream,  and 
at  the  same  time  I  saw  him  kick  the  ka 
naka. 

Now,  Captain  Oudouse  had  lost  all  his 
clothes,  except  his  shoes,  and  they  were 
heavy  brogans.  It  was  a  cruel  blow,  for 
it  caught  the  heathen  on  the  mouth  and 
the  point  of  the  chin,  half  stunning  him. 
I  looked  for  him  to  retaliate,  but  he  con 
tented  himself  with  swimming  about  for 
lornly  a  safe  ten  feet  away.  Whenever 
a  fling  of  the  sea  threw  him  closer,  the 
Frenchman,  hanging  on  with  his  hands, 


1 68  THE  HEATHEN 

kicked  out  at  him  with  both  feet.  Also, 
at  the  moment  of  delivering  each  kick, 
he  called  the  kanaka  a  black  heathen. 

"For  two  centimes  I'd  come  over  there 
and  drown  you,  you  white  beast !"  I  yelled. 

The  only  reason  I  did  not  go  was  that  I 
felt  too  tired.  The  very  thought  of  the 
effort  to  swim  over  was  nauseating.  So  I 
called  to  the  kanaka  to  come  to  me,  and 
proceeded  to  share  the  hatch-cover  with 
him.  Otoo,  he  told  me  his  name  was  (pro 
nounced  6-to-5) ;  also,  he  told  me  that 
he  was  a  native  of  Bora  Bora,  the  most 
westerly  of  the  Society  Group.  As  I 
learned  afterward,  he  had  got  the  hatch- 
cover  first,  and,  after  some  time,  encounter 
ing  Captain  Oudouse,  had  offered  to  share 
it  with  him,  and  had  been  kicked  off  for 
his  pains. 

And  that  was  how  Otoo  and  I  first  came 
together.  He  was  no  fighter.  He  was  all 
sweetness  and  gentleness,  a  love-creature, 
though  he  stood  nearly  six  feet  tall  and  was 
muscled  like  a  gladiator.  He  was  no 


THE  HEATHEN  169 

fighter,  but  he  was  also  no  coward.  He 
had  the  heart  of  a  lion ;  and  in  the  years 
that  followed  I  have  seen  him  run  risks 
that  I  would  never  dream  of  taking.  What 
I  mean  is  that  while  he  was  no  fighter,  and 
while  he  always  avoided  precipitating  a 
row,  he  never  ran  away  from  trouble  when 
it  started.  And  it  was  "'Ware  shoal!" 
when  once  Otoo  went  into  action.  I  shall 
never  forget  what  he  did  to  Bill  King.  It 
occurred  in  German  Samoa.  Bill  King 
was  hailed  the  champion  heavyweight  of 
the  American  Navy.  He  was  a  big  brute 
of  a  man,  a  veritable  gorilla,  one  of  those 
hard-hitting,  rough-housing  chaps,  and 
clever  with  his  fists  as  well.  He  picked 
the  quarrel,  and  he  kicked  Otoo  twice  and 
struck  him  once  before  Otoo  felt  it  to  be 
necessary  to  fight.  I  don't  think  it  lasted 
four  minutes,  at  the  end  of  which  time  Bill 
King  was  the  unhappy  possessor  of  four 
broken  ribs,  a  broken  forearm,  and  a  dis 
located  shoulder-blade.  Otoo  knew  noth 
ing  of  scientific  boxing.  He  was  merely  a 


170  THE   HEATHEN 

manhandler ;  and  Bill  King  was  something 
like  three  months  in  recovering  from  the 
bit  of  manhandling  he  received  that  after 
noon  on  Apia  beach. 

But  I  am  running  ahead  of  my  yarn. 
We  shared  the  hatch-cover  between  us. 
We  took  turn  and  turn  about,  one  lying 
flat  on  the  cover  and  resting,  while  the 
other,  submerged  to  the  neck,  merely  held 
on  with  his  hands.  For  two  days  and 
nights,  spell  and  spell,  on  the  cover  and 
in  the  water,  we  drifted  over  the  ocean. 
Towards  the  last  I  was  delirious  most  of 
the  time ;  and  there  were  times,  too,  when 
I  heard  Otoo  babbling  and  raving  in  his 
native  tongue.  Our  continuous  immersion 
prevented  us  from  dying  of  thirst,  though 
the  sea-water  and  the  sunshine  gave  us  the 
prettiest  imaginable  combination  of  salt 
pickle  and  sunburn. 

In  the  end,  Otoo  saved  my  life ;  for  I 
came  to  lying  on  the  beach  twenty  feet 
from  the  water,  sheltered  from  the  sun  by 
a  couple  of  cocoanut  leaves.  No  one  but 


THE   HEATHEN  171 

Otoo  could  have  dragged  me  there  and 
stuck  up  the  leaves  for  shade.  He  was 
lying  beside  me.  I  went  off  again ;  and 
the  next  time  I  came  round,  it  was  cool 
and  starry  night,  and  Otoo  was  pressing 
a  drinking  cocoanut  to  my  lips. 

We  were  the  sole  survivors  of  the  Petite 
Jeanne.  Captain  Oudouse  must  have  suc 
cumbed  to  exhaustion,  for  several  days 
later  his  hatch-cover  drifted  ashore  with 
out  him.  Otoo  and  I  lived  with  the  natives 
of  the  atoll  for  a  week,  when  we  were 
rescued  by  the  French  cruiser  and  taken 
to  Tahiti.  In  the  meantime,  however, 
we  had  performed  the  ceremony  of  ex 
changing  names.  In  the  South  Seas  such 
a  ceremony  binds  two  men  closer  together 
than  blood-brothership.  The  initiative 
had  been  mine ;  and  Otoo  was  rapturously 
delighted  when  I  suggested  it. 

"It  is  well,"  he  said,  in  Tahitian.  "For 
we  have  been  mates  together  for  two  days 
on  the  lips  of  Death. 

"But  Death  stuttered,"  I  smiled. 


172  THE  HEATHEN 

"It  was  a  brave  deed  you  did,  master," 
he  replied,  "and  Death  was  not  vile  enough 
to  speak." 

"Why  do  you  'master'  me?"  I  de 
manded,  with  a  show  of  hurt  feelings. 
"We  have  exchanged  names.  To  you  I 
am  Otoo.  To  me  you  are  Charley.  And 
between  you  and  me,  forever  and  forever, 
you  shall  be  Charley,  and  I  shall  be  Otoo. 
It  is  the  way  of  the  custom.  And  when 
we  die,  if  it  does  happen  that  we  live  again 
somewhere  beyond  the  stars  and  the  sky, 
still  shall  you  be  Charley  to  me,  and  I 
Otoo  to  you." 

"Yes,  master,"  he  answered,  his  eyes 
luminous  and  soft  with  joy. 

"There  you  go!"  I  cried  indignantly. 

"What  does  it  matter  what  my  lips 
utter?"  he  argued.  "They  are  only  my 
lips.  But  I  shall  think  Otoo  always. 
Whenever  I  think  of  myself,  I  shall  think 
of  you.  Whenever  men  call  me  by  name, 
I  shall  think  of  you.  And  beyond  the  sky 
and  beyond  the  stars,  always  and  forever, 


THE  HEATHEN  173 

you  shall  be  Otoo  to  me.  Is  it  well, 
master?" 

I  hid  my  smile,  and  answered  that  it 
was  well. 

We  parted  at  Papeete.  I  remained 
ashore  to  recuperate;  and  he  went  on  in 
a  cutter  to  his  own  island,  Bora  Bora. 
Six  weeks  later  he  was  back.  I  was  sur 
prised,  for  he  had  told  me  of  his  wife,  and 
said  that  he  was  returning  to  her,  and 
would  give  over  sailing  on  far  voyages. 

"Where  do  you  go,  master?"  he  asked, 
after  our  first  greetings. 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  It  was  a  hard 
question. 

"All  the  world,"  was  my  answer  — 
"all  the  world,  all  the  sea,  and  all  the 
islands  that  are  in  the  sea." 

"I  will  go  with  you,"  he  said  simply. 
"My  wife  is  dead." 

I  never  had  a  brother ;  but  from  what  I 
have  seen  of  other  men's  brothers,  I  doubt 
if  any  man  ever  had  a  brother  that  was  to 
him  what  Otoo  was  to  me.  He  was 


174  THE  HEATHEN 

brother  and  father  and  mother  as  well. 
And  this  I  know :  I  lived  a  straighter  and 
better  man  because  of  Otoo.  I  cared  little 
for  other  men,  but  I  had  to  live  straight 
in  Otoo's  eyes.  Because  of  him  I  dared 
not  tarnish  myself.  He  made  me  his  ideal, 
compounding  me,  I  fear,  chiefly  out  of 
his  own  love  and  worship ;  and  there  were 
times  when  I  stood  close  to  the  steep  pitch 
of  hell,  and  would  have  taken  the  plunge 
had  not  the  thought  of  Otoo  restrained 
me.  His  pride  in  me  entered  into  me, 
until  it  became  one  of  the  major  rules  in 
my  personal  code  to  do  nothing  that  would 
diminish  that  pride  of  his. 

Naturally,  I  did  not  learn  right  away 
what  his  feelings  were  toward  me.  He 
never  criticised,  never  censured  ;  and  slowly 
the  exalted  place  I  held  in  his  eyes  dawned 
upon  me,  and  slowly  I  grew  to  compre 
hend  the  hurt  I  could  inflict  upon  him  by 
being  anything  less  than  my  best. 

For  seventeen  years  we  were  together; 
for  seventeen  years  he  was  at  my  shoulder, 


THE  HEATHEN  175 

watching  while  I  slept,  nursing  me 
through  fever  and  wounds  —  ay,  and  re 
ceiving  wounds  in  fighting  for  me.  He 
signed  on  the  same  ships  with  me ;  and 
together  we  ranged  the  Pacific  from  Hawaii 
to  Sydney  Head,  and  from  Torres  Straits 
to  the  Galapagos.  We  blackbirded  from 
the  New  Hebrides  and  the  Line  Islands 
over  to  the  westward  clear  through  the 
Louisades,  New  Britain,  New  Ireland,  and 
New  Hanover.  We  were  wrecked  three 
times  —  in  the  Gilberts,  in  the  Santa  Cruz 
group,  and  in  the  Fijis.  And  we  traded 
and  salved  wherever  a  dollar  promised  in 
the  way  of  pearl  and  pearl-shell,  copra, 
beche-de-mer,  hawkbill  turtle-shell,  and 
stranded  wrecks. 

It  began  in  Papeete,  immediately  after 
his  announcement  that  he  was  going  with 
me  over  all  the  sea,  and  the  islands  in  the 
midst  thereof.  There  was  a  club  in  those 
days  in  Papeete,  where  the  pearlers, 
traders,  captains,  and  riffraff  of  South  Sea 
adventurers  forgathered.  The  play  ran 


176  THE  HEATHEN 

high,  and  the  drink  ran  high ;  and  I  am 
very  much  afraid  that  I  kept  later  hours 
than  were  becoming  or  proper.  No  matter 
what  the  hour  was  when  I  left  the  club, 
there  was  Otoo  waiting  to  see  me  safely 
home. 

At  first  I  smiled;  next  I  chided  him. 
Then  I  told  him  flatly  that  I  stood  in  need 
of  no  wet-nursing.  After  that  I  did  not 
see  him  when  I  came  out  of  the  club. 
Quite  by  accident,  a  week  or  so  later,  I 
discovered  that  he  still  saw  me  home, 
lurking  across  the  street  among  the  shad 
ows  of  the  mango-trees.  What  could  I 
do  ?  I  know  what  I  did  do. 

Insensibly  I  began  to  keep  better  hours. 
On  wet  and  stormy  nights,  in  the  thick  of 
the  folly  and  the  fun,  the  thought  would 
persist  in  coming  to  me  of  Otoo  keeping 
his  dreary  vigil  under  the  dripping 
mangoes.  Truly,  he  made  a  better  man 
of  me.  Yet  he  was  not  strait-laced.  And 
he  knew  nothing  of  common  Christian 
morality.  All  the  people  on  Bora  Bora 


THE  HEATHEN  177 

were  Christians ;  but  he  was  a  heathen, 
the  only  unbeliever  on  the  island,  a  gross 
materialist,  who  believed  that  when  he 
died  he  was  dead.  He  believed  merely 
in  fair  play  and  square  dealing.  Petty 
meanness,  in  his  code,  was  almost  as  seri 
ous  as  wanton  homicide ;  and  I  do  believe 
that  he  respected  a  murderer  more  than  a 
man  given  to  small  practices. 

Concerning  me,  personally,  he  objected 
to  my  doing  anything  that  was  hurtful  to 
me.  Gambling  was  all  right.  He  was  an 
ardent  gambler  himself.  But  late  hours, 
he  explained,  were  bad  for  one's  health. 
He  had  seen  men  who  did  not  take  care 
of  themselves  die  of  fever.  He  was  no 
teetotaller,  and  welcomed  a  stiff  nip  any 
time  when  it  was  wet  work  in  the  boats. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  believed  in  liquor 
in  moderation.  He  had  seen  many  men 
killed  or  disgraced  by  square-face  or  Scotch. 

Otoo  had  my  welfare  always  at  heart. 
He  thought  ahead  for  me,  weighed  my 
plans,  and  took  a  greater  interest  in  them 


i;8  THE  HEATHEN 

than  I  did  myself.  At  first,  when  I  was 
unaware  of  this  interest  of  his  in  my  affairs, 
he  had  to  divine  my  intentions,  as,  for 
instance,  at  Papeete,  when  I  contemplated 
going  partners  with  a  knavish  fellow-coun 
tryman  on  a  guano  venture.  I  did  not 
know  he  was  a  knave.  Nor  did  any  white 
man  in  Papeete.  Neither  did  Otoo  know, 
but  he  saw  how  thick  we  were  getting, 
and  found  out  for  me,  and  without  my  ask 
ing  him.  Native  sailors  from  the  ends  of 
the  seas  knock  about  on  the  beach  in 
Tahiti ;  and  Otoo,  suspicious  merely,  went 
among  them  till  he  had  gathered  sufficient 
data  to  justify  his  suspicions.  Oh,  it  was 
a  nice  history,  that  of  Randolph  Waters. 
I  couldn't  believe  it  when  Otoo  first  nar 
rated  it ;  but  when  I  sheeted  it  home  to 
Waters  he  gave  in  without  a  murmur,  and 
got  away  on  the  first  steamer  to  Aukland. 

At  first,  I  am  free  to  confess,  I  couldn't 
help  resenting  Otoo's  poking  his  nose  into 
my  business.  But  I  knew  that  he  was 
wholly  unselfish ;  and  soon  I  had  to  ac- 


THE  HEATHEN  179 

knowledge  his  wisdom  and  discretion.  He 
had  his  eyes  open  always  to  my  main 
chance,  and  he  was  both  keen-sighted  and 
far-sighted.  In  time  he  became  my  coun 
sellor,  until  he  knew  more  of  my  business 
than  I  did  myself.  He  really  had  my 
interest  at  heart  more  than  I  did.  Mine 
was  the  magnificent  carelessness  of  youth, 
for  I  preferred  romance  to  dollars,  and 
adventure  to  a  comfortable  billet  with  all 
night  in.  So  it  was  well  that  I  had  some  one 
to  look  out  for  me.  I  know  that  if  it  had 
not  been  for  Otoo,  I  should  not  be  here 
to-day. 

Of  numerous  instances,  let  me  give  one. 
I  had  had  some  experience  in  blackbirding 
before  I  went  pearling  in  the  Paumotus. 
Otoo  and  I  were  on  the  beach  in  Samoa  — 
we  really  were  on  the  beach  and  hard 
aground  —  when  my  chance  came  to  go 
as  recruiter  on  a  blackbird  brig.  Otoo 
signed  on  before  the  mast ;  and  for  the 
next  half-dozen  years,  in  as  many  ships, 
we  knocked  about  the  wildest  portions  of 


i  So  THE  HEATHEN 

Melanesia.  Otoo  saw  to  it  that  he  always 
pulled  stroke-oar  in  my  boat.  Our  cus 
tom  in  recruiting  labor  was  to  land  the 
recruiter  on  the  beach.  The  covering  boat 
always  lay  on  its  oars  several  hundred 
feet  off  shore,  while  the  recruiter's  boat, 
also  lying  on  its  oars,  kept  afloat  on  the 
edge  of  the  beach.  When  I  landed  with 
my  trade-goods,  leaving  my  steering  sweep 
apeak,  Otoo  left  his  stroke  position  and 
came  into  the  stern-sheets,  where  a  Win 
chester  lay  ready  to  hand  under  a  flap  of 
canvas.  The  boat's  crew  was  also  armed, 
the  Sniders  concealed  under  canvas  flaps 
that  ran  the  length  of  the  gunwales.  While 
I  was  busy  arguing  and  persuading  the 
woolly-headed  cannibals  to  come  and  la 
bor  on  the  Queensland  plantations  Otoo 
kept  watch.  And  often  and  often  his  low 
voice  warned  me  of  suspicious  actions  and 
impending  treachery.  Sometimes  it  was 
the  quick  shot  from  his  rifle,  knocking  a 
nigger  over,  that  was  the  first  warning 
I  received.  And  in  my  rush  to  the  boat 


THE  HEATHEN  181 

his  hand  was  always  there  to  jerk  me  flying 
aboard.  Once,  I  remember,  on  Santa 
Anna,  the  boat  grounded  just  as  the  trouble 
began.  The  covering  boat  was  dashing 
to  our  assistance,  but  the  several  score  of 
savages  would  have  wiped  us  out  before 
it  arrived.  Otoo  took  a  flying  leap  ashore, 
dug  both  hands  into  the  trade-goods,  and 
scattered  tobacco,  beads,  tomahawks, 
knives,  and  calicoes  in  all  directions. 

This  was  too  much  for  the  woolly-heads. 
While  they  scrambled  for  the  treasures, 
the  boat  was  shoved  clear,  and  we  were 
aboard  and  forty  feet  away.  And  I  got 
thirty  recruits  off  that  very  beach  in  the 
next  four  hours. 

The  particular  instance  I  have  in  mind 
was  on  Malaita,  the  most  savage  island  in 
the  easterly  Solomons.  The  natives  had 
been  remarkably  friendly ;  and  how  were 
we  to  know  that  the  whole  village  had  been 
taking  up  a  collection  for  over  two  years 
with  which  to  buy  a  white  man's  head  ? 
The  beggars  are  all  head-hunters?  and  they 


1 82  THE   HEATHEN 

especially  esteem  a  white  man's  head. 
The  fellow  who  captured  the  head  would 
receive  the  whole  collection.  As  I  say, 
they  appeared  very  friendly;  and  on  this 
day  I  was  fully  a  hundred  yards  down  the 
beach  from  the  boat.  Otoo  had  cautioned 
me ;  and,  as  usual  when  I  did  not  heed 
him,  I  came  to  grief. 

The  first  I  knew,  a  cloud  of  spears  sailed 
out  of  the  mangrove  swamp  at  me.  At 
least  a  dozen  were  sticking  into  me.  I 
started  to  run,  but  tripped  over  one  that 
was  fast  in  my  calf,  and  went  down.  The 
woolly-heads  made  a  run  for  me,  each  with 
a  long-handled,  fantail  tomahawk  with 
which  to  hack  off  my  head.  They  were  so 
eager  for  the  prize  that  they  got  in  one 
another's  way.  In  the  confusion,  I  avoided 
several  hacks  by  throwing  myself  right  and 
left  on  the  sand. 

Then  Otoo  arrived  —  Otoo  the  man- 
handler.  In  some  way  he  had  got  hold 
of  a  heavy  war  club,  and  at  close  quarters 
it  was  a  far  more  efficient  weapon  than  a 


THE  HEATHEN  183 

rifle.  He  was  right  in  the  thick  of  them, 
so  that  they  could  not  spear  him,  while 
their  tomahawks  seemed  worse  than  use 
less.  He  was  fighting  for  me,  and  he  was 
in  a  true  Berserker  rage.  The  way  he 
handled  that  club  was  amazing.  Their 
skulls  squashed  like  overripe  oranges.  It 
was  not  until  he  had  driven  them  back, 
picked  me  up  in  his  arms,  and  started  to 
run,  that  he  received  his  first  wounds.  He 
arrived  in  the  boat  with  four  spear  thrusts, 
got  his  Winchester,  and  with  it  got  a  man 
for  every  shot.  Then  we  pulled  aboard 
the  schooner,  and  doctored  up. 

Seventeen  years  we  were  together.  He 
made  me.  I  should  to-day  be  a  super 
cargo,  a  recruiter,  or  a  memory,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  him. 

"You  spend  your  money,  and  you  go 
out  and  get  more,"  he  said  one  day.  "It 
is  easy  to  get  money  now.  But  when  you 
get  old,  your  money  will  be  spent,  and  you 
will  not  be  able  to  go  out  and  get  more.  I 
know,  master.  I  have  studied  the  way  of 


1 84  THE  HEATHEN 

white  men.  On  the  beaches  are  many  old 
men  who  were  young  once,  and  who  could 
get  money  just  like  you.  Now  they  are 
old,  and  they  have  nothing,  and  they  wait 
about  for  the  young  men  like  you  to  come 
ashore  and  buy  drinks  for  them. 

"The  black  boy  is  a  slave  on  the  planta 
tions.  He  gets  twenty  dollars  a  year.  He 
works  hard.  The  overseer  does  not  work 
hard.  He  rides  a  horse  and  watches  the 
black  boy  work.  He  gets  twelve  hundred 
dollars  a  year.  I  am  a  sailor  on  the 
schooner.  I  get  fifteen  dollars  a  month. 
That  is  because  I  am  a  good  sailor.  I  work 
hard.  The  captain  has  a  double  awning, 
and  drinks  beer  out  of  long  bottles.  I 
have  never  seen  him  haul  a  rope  or  pull  an 
oar.  He  gets  one  hundred  and  fifty  dol 
lars  a  month.  I  am  a  sailor.  He  is  a 
navigator.  Master,  I  think  it  would  be 
very  good  for  you  to  know  navigation." 

Otoo  spurred  me  on  to  it.  He  sailed 
with  me  as  second  mate  on  my  first 
schooner,  and  he  was  far  prouder  of  my 


THE  HEATHEN  185 

command  than  I  was  myself.  Later  on 
it  was  : 

"The  captain  is  well  paid,  master;  but 
the  ship  is  in  his  keeping,  and  he  is  never 
free  from  the  burden.  It  is  the  owner 
who  is  better  paid  —  the  owner  who  sits 
ashore  with  many  servants  and  turns  his 
money  over." 

"True,  but  a  schooner  costs  five  thou 
sand  dollars  —  an  old  schooner  at  that," 
I  objected.  "I  should  be  an  old  man 
before  I  saved  five  thousand  dollars." 

"There  be  short  ways  for  white  men  to 
make  money,"  he  went  on,  pointing  ashore 
at  the  cocoanut-fringed  beach. 

We  were  in  the  Solomons  at  the  time, 
picking  up  a  cargo  of  ivory-nuts  along  the 
east  coast  of  Guadalcanar. 

"Between  this  river  mouth  and  the  next 
it  is  two  miles,"  he  said.  "The  flat  land 
runs  far  back.  It  is  worth  nothing  now. 
Next  year  —  who  knows  ?  —  or  the  year 
after,  men  will  pay  much  money  for  that 
land.  The  anchorage  is  good.  Big 


1 86  THE  HEATHEN 

steamers  can  lie  close  up.  You  can  buy 
the  land  four  miles  deep  from  the  old  chief 
for  ten  thousand  sticks  of  tobacco,  ten 
bottles  of  square-face,  and  a  Snider,  which 
will  cost  you,  maybe,  one  hundred  dollars. 
Then  you  place  the  deed  with  the  commis 
sioner  ;  and  the  next  year,  or  the  year  after, 
you  sell  and  become  the  owner  of  a  ship." 
I  followed  his  lead,  and  his  words  came 
true,  though  in  three  years,  instead  of  two. 
Next  came  the  grasslands  deal  on  Guadal- 
canar  —  twenty  thousand  acres,  on  a  gov 
ernmental  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
years'  lease  at  a  nominal  sum.  I  owned 
the  lease  for  precisely  ninety  days,  when  I 
sold  it  to  a  company  for  half  a  fortune. 
Always  it  was  Otoo  who  looked  ahead 
and  saw  the  opportunity.  He  was  respon 
sible  for  the  salving  of  the  Doncaster  — 
bought  in  at  auction  for  a  hundred  pounds, 
and  clearing  three  thousand  after  every 
expense  was  paid.  He  led  me  into  the 
Savaii  plantation  and  the  cocoa  venture 
on  Upolu. 


THE  HEATHEN  187 

We  did  not  go  seafaring  so  much  as  in 
the  old  days.  I  was  too  well  off.  I 
married,  and  my  standard  of  living  rose; 
but  Otoo  remained  the  same  old-time  Otoo, 
moving  about  the  house  or  trailing  through 
the  office,  his  wooden  pipe  in  his  mouth, 
a  shilling  undershirt  on  his  back,  and  a 
four-shilling  lava-lava  about  his  loins.  I 
could  not  get  him  to  spend  money.  There 
was  no  way  of  repaying  him  except  with 
love,  and  God  knows  he  got  that  in  full 
measure  from  all  of  us.  The  children  wor 
shipped  him ;  and  if  he  had  been  spoilable, 
my  wife  would  surely  have  been  his  un 
doing. 

The  children  !  He  really  was  the  one 
who  showed  them  the  way  of  their  feet 
in  the  world  practical.  He  began  by  teach 
ing  them  to  walk.  He  sat  up  with  them 
when  they  were  sick.  One  by  one,  when 
they  were  scarcely  toddlers,  he  took  them 
down  to  the  lagoon,  and  made  them  into 
amphibians.  He  taught  them  more  than 
I  ever  knew  of  the  habits  of  fish  and  the 


1 88  THE  HEATHEN 

ways  of  catching  them.  In  the  bush  it 
was  the  same  thing.  At  seven,  Tom  knew 
more  woodcraft  than  I  ever  dreamed  ex 
isted.  At  six,  Mary  went  over  the  Sliding 
Rock  without  a  quiver,  and  I  have  seen 
strong  men  balk  at  that  feat.  And  when 
Frank  had  just  turned  six  he  could  bring 
up  shillings  from  the  bottom  in  three 
fathoms. 

"My  people  in  Bora  Bora  do  not  like 
heathen-- they  are  all  Christians;  and  I 
do  not  like  Bora  Bora  Christians,"  he  said 
one  day,  when  I,  with  the  idea  of  getting 
him  to  spend  some  of  the  money  that  was 
rightfully  his,  had  been  trying  to  persuade 
him  to  make  a  visit  to  his  own  island  in  one 
of  our  schooners  —  a  special  voyage  which 
I  had  hoped  to  make  a  record  breaker  in 
the  matter  of  prodigal  expense. 

I  say  one  of  our  schooners,  though  legally  at 
the  time  they  belonged  to  me.  I  struggled 
long  with  him  to  enter  into  partnership. 

"We  have  been  partners  from  the  day 
the  Petite  Jeanne  went  down,"  he  said  at 


THE  HEATHEN  189 

last.  "But  if  your  heart  so  wishes,  then 
shall  we  become  partners  by  the  law.  I 
have  no  work  to  do,  yet  are  my  expenses 
large.  I  drink  and  eat  and  smoke  in 
plenty  —  it  costs  much,  I  know.  I  do  not 
pay  for  the  playing  of  billiards,  for  I  play 
on  your  table ;  but  still  the  money  goes. 
Fishing  on  the  reef  is  only  a  rich  man's 
pleasure.  It  is  shocking,  the  cost  of  hooks 
and  cotton  line.  Yes ;  it  is  necessary  that 
we  be  partners  by  the  law.  I  need  the 
money.  I  shall  get  it  from  the  head  clerk 
in  the  office." 

So  the  papers  were  made  out  and  re 
corded.  A  year  later  I  was  compelled  to 
complain. 

"Charley,"  said  I,  "you  are  a  wickeH 
old  fraud,  a  miserly  skinflint,  a  miserable 
land-crab.  Behold,  your  share  for  the  year 
in  all  our  partnership  has  been  thousands 
of  dollars.  The  head  clerk  has  given  me 
this  paper.  It  says  that  in  the  year  you 
have  drawn  just  eighty-seven  dollars  and 
twenty  cents." 


190  THE   HEATHEN 

"Is  there  any  owing  me?"  he  asked 
anxiously. 

"I  tell  you  thousands  and  thousands,"  I 
answered. 

His  face  brightened,  as  with  an  immense 
relief. 

"It  is  well,"  he  said.  "See  that  the  head 
clerk  keeps  good  account  of  it.  When  I 
want  it,  I  shall  want  it,  and  there  must 
not  be  a  cent  missing. 

"If  there  is,"  he  added  fiercely,  after  a 
pause,  "it  must  come  out  of  the  clerk's 
wages." 

And  all  the  time,  as  I  afterwards  learned, 
his  will,  drawn  up  by  Carruthers,  and 
making  me  sole  beneficiary,  lay  in  the 
American  consul's  safe. 

But  the  end  came,  as  the  end  must 
come  to  all  human  associations.  It  oc 
curred  in  the  Solomons,  where  our  wildest 
work  had  been  done  in  the  wild  young 
days,  and  where  we  were  once  more  — 
principally  on  a  holiday,  incidentally  to 
look  after  our  holdings  on  Florida  Island 


THE   HEATHEN  191 

and  to  look  over  the  pearling  possibilities 
of  the  Mboli  Pass.  We  were  lying  at  Savo, 
having  run  in  to  trade  for  curios. 

Now,  Savo  is  alive  with  sharks.  The 
custom  of  the  woolly-heads  of  burying 
their  dead  in  the  sea  did  not  tend  to  dis 
courage  the  sharks  from  making  the  adja 
cent  waters  a  hang-out.  It  was  my  luck 
to  be  coming  aboard  in  a  tiny,  overloaded, 
native  canoe,  when  the  thing  capsized. 
There  were  four  woolly-heads  and  myself 
in  it,  or,  rather,  hanging  to  it.  The 
schooner  was  a  hundred  yards  away.  I 
was  just  hailing  for  a  boat  when  one  of  the 
woolly-heads  began  to  scream.  Holding 
on  to  the  end  of  the  canoe,  both  he  and 
that  portion  of  the  canoe  were  dragged 
under  several  times.  Then  he  loosed  his 
clutch  and  disappeared.  A  shark  had  got 
him. 

The  three  remaining  niggers  tried  to 
climb  out  of  the  water  upon  the  bottom 
of  the  canoe.  I  yelled  and  cursed  and 
struck  at  the  nearest  with  my  fist,  but 


192  THE   HEATHEN 

it  was  no  use.  They  were  in  a  blind 
funk.  The  canoe  could  barely  have  sup 
ported  one  of  them.  Under  the  three  it 
upended  and  rolled  sidewise,  throwing 
them  back  into  the  water. 

I  abandoned  the  canoe  and  started  to 
swim  toward  the  schooner,  expecting  to 
be  picked  up  by  the  boat  before  I  got  there. 
One  of  the  niggers  elected  to  come  with 
me,  and  we  swam  along  silently,  side  by 
side,  now  and  again  putting  our  faces  into 
the  water  and  peering  about  for  sharks. 
The  screams  of  the  man  who  stayed  by 
the  canoe  informed  us  that  he  was  taken. 
I  was  peering  into  the  water  when  I  saw 
a  big  shark  pass  directly  beneath  me.  He 
was  fully  sixteen  feet  in  length.  I  saw 
the  whole  thing.  He  got  the  woolly-head 
by  the  middle,  and  away  he  went,  the  poor 
devil,  head,  shoulders,  and  arms  out  of 
water  all  the  time,  screeching  in  a  heart 
rending  way.  He  was  carried  along  in 
this  fashion  for  several  hundred  feet,  when 
he  was  dragged  beneath  the  surface. 


THE  HEATHEN  193 

I  swam  doggedly  on,  hoping  that  that 
was  the  last  unattached  shark.  But  there 
was  another.  Whether  it  was  one  that 
had  attacked  the  natives  earlier,  or  whether 
it  was  one  that  had  made  a  good  meal 
elsewhere,  I  do  not  know.  At  any  rate, 
he  was  not  in  such  haste  as  the  others.  I 
could  not  swim  so  rapidly  now,  for  a  large 
part  of  my  effort  was  devoted  to  keeping 
track  of  him.  I  was  watching  him  when 
he  made  his  first  attack.  By  good  luck 
I  got  both  hands  on  his  nose,  and,  though 
his  momentum  nearly  shoved  me  under,  I 
managed  to  keep  him  off.  He  veered 
clear,  and  began  circling  about  again.  A 
second  time  I  escaped  him  by  the  same 
manoeuvre.  The  third  rush  was  a  miss 
on  both  sides.  He  sheered  at  the  moment 
my  hands  should  have  landed  on  his  nose, 
but  his  sandpaper  hide  (I  had  on  a  sleeve 
less  undershirt)  scraped  the  skin  off  one 
arm  from  elbow  to  shoulder. 

By  this  time  I  was  played  out,  and  gave 
up  hope.  The  schooner  was  still  two  hun- 


194  THE  HEATHEN 

dred  feet  away.  My  face  was  in  the  water, 
and  I  was  watching  him  manoeuvre  for 
another  attempt,  when  I  saw  a  brown  body 
pass  between  us.  It  was  Otoo. 

"Swim  for  the  schooner,  master!"  he 
said.  And  he  spoke  gayly,  as  though  the 
affair  was  a  mere  lark.  "I  know  sharks. 
The  shark  is  my  brother." 

I  obeyed,  swimming  slowly  on,  while 
Otoo  swam  about  me,  keeping  always 
between  me  and  the  shark,  foiling  his 
rushes  and  encouraging  me. 

"The  davit  tackle  carried  away,  and 
they  are  rigging  the  falls,"  he  explained,  a 
minute  or  so  later,  and  then  went  under 
to  head  off  another  attack. 

By  the  time  the  schooner  was  thirty  feet 
away  I  was  about  done  for.  I  could 
scarcely  move.  They  were  heaving  lines 
at  us  from  on  board,  but  they  continually 
fell  short.  The  shark,  finding  that  it  was 
receiving  no  hurt,  had  become  bolder. 
Several  times  it  nearly  got  me,  but  each 
time  Otoo  was  there  just  the  moment  be- 


THE  HEATHEN  195 

fore  it  was  too  late.  Of  course,  Otoo  could 
have  saved  himself  any  time.  But  he 
stuck  by  me. 

"Good-by,  Charley!  I'm  finished!"  I 
just  managed  to  gasp. 

I  knew  that  the  end  had  come,  and  that 
the  next  moment  I  should  throw  up  my 
hands  and  go  down. 

But  Otoo  laughed  in  my  face,  saying : 

"I  will  show  you  a  new  trick.  I  will 
make  that  shark  feel  sick  !" 

He  dropped  in  behind  me,  where  the 
shark  was  preparing  to  come  at  me. 

"A  little  more  to  the  left!"  he  next 
called  out.  "There  is  a  line  there  on  the 
water.  To  the  left,  master  —  to  the  left !" 

I  changed  my  course  and  struck  out 
blindly.  I  was  by  that  time  barely  con 
scious.  As  my  hand  closed  on  the  line  I 
heard  an  exclamation  from  on  board.  I 
turned  and  looked.  There  was  no  sign 
of  Otoo.  The  next  instant  he  broke  sur 
face.  Both  hands  were  off  at  the  wrist, 
the  stumps  spouting  blood. 


196  THE  HEATHEN 

"Otoo!"  he  called  softly.  And  I  could 
see  in  his  gaze  the  love  that  thrilled  in  his 
voice. 

Then,  and  then  only,  at  the  very  last 
of  all  our  years,  he  called  me  by  that 
name. 

"Good-by,  Otoo!"  he  called. 

Then  he  was  dragged  under,  and  I  was 
hauled  aboard,  where  I  fainted  in  the 
captain's  arms. 

And  so  passed  Otoo,  who  saved  me  and 
made  me  a  man,  and  who  saved  me  in  the 
end.  We  met  in  the  maw  of  a  hurricane, 
and  parted  in  the  maw  of  a  shark,  with 
seventeen  intervening  years  of  comrade 
ship,  the  like  of  which  I  dare  to  assert 
has  never  befallen  two  men,  the  one  brown 
and  the  other  white.  If  Jehovah  be  from 
His  high  place  watching  every  sparrow 
fall,  not  least  in  His  kingdom  shall  be  Otoo, 
the  one  heathen  of  Bora  Bora. 


THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS 


THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS 

THERE    is   no  gainsaying    that    the 
Solomons  are  a  hard-bitten  bunch 
of    islands.     On    the    other    hand, 
there   are  worse  places  in  the  world.     But 
to  the  new  chum  who  has  no  constitutional 
understanding  of  men  and  life  in  the  rough, 
the  Solomons  may  indeed  prove  terrible. 

It  is  true  that  fever  and  dysentery  are 
perpetually  on  the  walk-about,  that  loath 
some  skin  diseases  abound,  that  the  air 
is  saturated  with  a  poison  that  bites  into 
every  pore,  cut,  or  abrasion  and  plants 
malignant  ulcers,  and  that  many  strong 
men  who  escape  dying  there  return  as 
wrecks  to  their  own  countries.  It  is  also 
true  that  the  natives  of  the  Solomons  are 
a  wild  lot,  with  a  hearty  appetite  for  human 
flesh  and  a  fad  for  collecting  human  heads. 
Their  highest  instinct  of  sportsmanship 

199 


200         THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

is  to  catch  a  man  with  his  back  turned 
and  to  smite  him  a  cunning  blow  with  a 
tomahawk  that  severs  the  spinal  column 
at  the  base  of  the  brain.  It  is  equally 
true  that  on  some  islands,  such  as  Malaita, 
the  profit  and  loss  account  of  social  inter 
course  is  calculated  in  homocides.  Heads 
are  a  medium  of  exchange,  and  white  heads 
are  extremely  valuable.  Very  often  a 
dozen  villages  make  a  jack-pot,  which  they 
fatten  moon  by  moon,  against  the  time 
when  some  brave  warrior  presents  a  white 
man's  head,  fresh  and  gory,  and  claims 
the  pot. 

All  the  foregoing  is  quite  true,  and  yet 
there  are  white  men  who  have  lived  in  the 
Solomons  a  score  of  years  and  who  feel 
homesick  when  they  go  away  from  them. 
A  man  needs  only  to  be  careful  —  and 
lucky  —  to  live  a  long  time  in  the  Solomons  ; 
but  he  must  also  be  of  the  right  sort.  He 
must  have  the  hall-mark  of  the  inevitable 
white  man  stamped  upon  his  soul.  He 
must  be  inevitable.  He  must  have  a  cer- 


THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS         201 

tain  grand  carelessness  of  odds,  a  certain 
colossal  self-satisfaction,  and  a  racial  ego 
tism  that  convinces  him  that  one  white 
is  better  than  a  thousand  niggers  every 
day  in  the  week,  and  that  on  Sunday  he 
is  able  to  clean  out  two  thousand  nig 
gers.  For  such  are  the  things  that  have  made 
the  white  man  inevitable.  Oh,  and  one 
other  thing  —  the  white  man  who  wishes 
to  be  inevitable,  must  not  merely  despise 
the  lesser  breeds  and  think  a  lot  of  himself ; 
he  must  also  fail  to  be  too  long  on  imagina 
tion.  He  must  not  understand  too  well 
the  instincts,  customs,  and  mental  processes 
of  the  blacks,  the  yellows,  and  the  browns ; 
for  it  is  not  in  such  fashion  that  the  white 
race  has  tramped  its  royal  road  around  the 
world. 

Bertie  Arkwright  was  not  inevitable. 
He  was  too  sensitive,  too  finely  strung,  and 
he  possessed  too  much  imagination.  The 
world  was  too  much  with  him.  He  pro 
jected  himself  too  quiveringly  into  his 
environment.  Therefore,  the  last  place  in 


202          THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS 

the  world  for  him  to  come  was  the  Sol 
omons.  He  did  not  come,  expecting  to 
stay.  A  five  weeks'  stop-over  between 
steamers,  he  decided,  would  satisfy  the 
call  of  the  primitive  he  felt  thrumming  the 
strings  of  his  being.  At  least,  so  he  told 
the  lady  tourists  on  the  Makembo,  though 
in  different  terms ;  and  they  worshipped 
him  as  a  hero,  for  they  were  lady  tourists 
and  they  would  know  only  the  safety  of 
the  steamer's  deck  as  she  threaded  her  way 
through  the  Solomons. 

There  was  another  man  on  board,  of 
whom  the  ladies  took  no  notice.  He  was  a 
little  shrivelled  wisp  of  a  man,  with  a 
withered  skin  the  color  of  mahogany.  His 
name  on  the  passenger  list  does  not  matter, 
but  his  other  name,  Captain  Malu,  was  a 
name  for  niggers  to  conjure  with,  and  to 
scare  naughty  pickaninnies  to  righteous 
ness,  from  New  Hanover  to  the  New 
Hebrides.  He  had  farmed  savages  and 
savagery,  and  from  fever  and  hardship, 
the  crack  of  Sniders  and  the  lash  of  the 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          203 

overseers,  had  wrested  five  millions  of 
money  in  the  form  of  beche-de-mer,  sandal- 
wood,  pearl-shell  and  turtle-shell,  ivory- 
nuts  and  copra,  grasslands,  trading  sta 
tions,  and  plantations.  Captain  Malu's 
little  finger,  which  was  broken,  had  more 
inevitableness  in  it  than  Bertie  Arkwright's 
whole  carcass.  But  then,  the  lady  tour 
ists  had  nothing  by  which  to  judge  save 
appearances,  and  Bertie  certainly  was  a 
fine-looking  man. 

Bertie  talked  with  Captain  Malu  in  the 
smoking-room,  confiding  to  him  his  inten 
tion  of  seeing  life  red  and  bleeding  in  the 
Solomons.  Captain  Malu  agreed  that  the 
intention  was  ambitious  and  honorable.  It 
was  not  until  several  days  later  that  he 
became  interested  in  Bertie,  when  that 
young  adventurer  insisted  on  showing  him 
an  automatic  44-calibre  pistol.  Bertie  ex 
plained  the  mechanism  and  demonstrated 
by  slipping  a  loaded  magazine  up  the 
hollow  butt. 

"It   is    so    simple,"    he    said.     He    shot 


204          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

the  outer  barrel  back  along  the  inner  one. 
"That  loads  it  and  cocks  it,  you  see.  And 
then  all  I  have  to  do  is  pull  the  trigger, 
eight  times,  as  fast  as  I  can  quiver  my 
finger.  See  that  safety  clutch.  That's 
what  I  like  about  it.  It  is  safe.  It  is 
positively  fool-proof."  He  slipped  out  the 
magazine.  "You  see  how  safe  it  is." 

As  he  held  it  in  his  hand,  the  muzzle 
came  in  line  with  Captain  Malu's  stomach. 
Captain  Malu's  blue  eyes  looked  at  it 
unswervingly. 

"Would  you  mind  pointing  it  in  some 
other  direction  ?"  he  asked. 

"It's  perfectly  safe,"  Bertie  assured  him. 
"  I  withdrew  the  magazine.  It's  not  loaded 
now,  you  know." 

"A  gun  is  always  loaded." 

"But  this  one  isn't." 

"Turn  it  away  just  the  same." 

Captain  Malu's  voice  was  flat  and  me 
tallic  and  low,  but  his  eyes  never  left  the 
muzzle  until  the  line  of  it  was  drawn  past 
him  and  away  from  him. 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          205 

"I'll  bet  a  fiver  it  isn't  loaded,"  Bertie 
proposed  warmly. 

The  other  shook  his  head. 

"Then  I'll  show  you." 

Bertie  started  to  put  the  muzzle  to  his 
own  temple  with  the  evident  intention  of 
pulling  the  trigger. 

"Just  a  second,"  Captain  Malu  said 
quLtly,  reaching  out  his  hand.  "Let  me 
look  at  it." 

He  pointed  it  seaward  and  pulled  the 
trigger.  A  heavy  explosion  followed,  in 
stantaneous  with  the  sharp  click  of  the 
mechanism  that  flipped  a  hot  and  smoking 
cartridge  sidewise  along  the  deck.  Bertie's 
jaw  dropped  in  amazement. 

"I  slipped  the  barrel  back  once,  didn't 
I?"  he  explained.  "It  was  silly  of  me,  I 
must  say." 

He  giggled  flabbily,  and  sat  down  in  a 
steamer  chair.  The  blood  had  ebbed  from 
his  face,  exposing  dark  circles  under  his  eyes. 
His  hands  were  trembling  and  unable  to 
guide  the  shaking  cigarette  to  his  lips.  The 


206         THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

world  was  too  much  with  him,  and  he  saw 
himself  with  dripping  brains  prone  upon 
the  deck. 

"Really,"  he  said,   "...  really." 
"It's    a    pretty   weapon,"    said    Captain 
Malu,  returning  the  automatic  to  him. 

The  Commissioner  was  on  board  the 
Makembo,  returning  from  Sydney,  and  by 
his  permission  a  stop  was  made  at  Ugi  to 
land  a  missionary.  And  at  Ugi  lay  the 
ketch  Aria,  Captain  Hansen,  skipper.  Now 
the  Aria  was  one  of  many  vessels  owned  by 
Captain  Malu,  and  it  was  at  his  suggestion 
and  by  his  invitation  that  Bertie  went 
aboard  the  Aria  as  guest  for  a  four  days' 
recruiting  cruise  on  the  coast  of  Malaita. 
Thereafter  the  Aria  would  drop  him  at 
Reminge  Plantation  (also  owned  by  Cap 
tain  Malu),  where  Bertie  could  remain  for 
a  week,  and  then  be  sent  over  to  Tulagi, 
the  seat  of  government,  where  he  would 
become  the  Commissioner's  guest.  Captain 
Malu  was  responsible  for  two  other  sug 
gestions,  which  given,  he  disappears  from 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          207 

this  narrative.  One  was  to  Captain  Han- 
sen,  the  other  to  Mr.  Harriwell,  manager 
of  Reminge  Plantation.  Both  suggestions 
were  similar  in  tenor,  namely,  to  give  Mr. 
Bertram  Arkwright  an  insight  into  the  raw 
ness  and  redness  of  life  in  the  Solomons. 
Also,  it  is  whispered  that  Captain  Malu 
mentioned  that  a  case  of  Scotch  would  be 
coincidental  with  any  particularly  gorgeous 
insight  Mr.  Arkwright  might  receive. 

"Yes,  Swartz  always  was  too  pig-headed. 
You  see,  he  took  four  of  his  boat's  crew  to 
Tulagi  to  be  flogged  —  officially,  you  know 
—  then  started  back  with  them  in  the  whale- 
boat.  It  was  pretty  squally,  and  the  boat 
capsized  just  outside.  Swartz  was  the  only 
one  drowned.  Of  course  it  was  an  accident." 

"Was  it?  Really?"  Bertie  asked,  only 
half-interested,  staring  hard  at  the  black 
man  at  the  wheel. 

Ugi  had  dropped  astern,  and  the  Aria 
was  sliding  along  through  a  summer  sea 
toward  the  wooded  ranges  of  Malaita.  The 


208          THE   TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

helmsman  who  so  attracted  Bertie's  eyes 
sported  a  ten  penny  nail,  stuck  skewer- 
wise  through  his  nose.  About  his  neck 
was  a  string  of  pants  buttons.  Thrust 
through  holes  in  his  ears  were  a  can-opener, 
the  broken  handle  of  a  tooth-brush,  a  clay 
pipe,  the  brass  wheel  of  an  alarm  clock,  and 
several  Winchester  rifle  cartridges.  On  his 
chest,  suspended  from  around  his  neck 
hung  the  half  of  a  china  plate.  Some  forty 
similarly  apparelled  blacks  lay  about  the 
deck,  fifteen  of  which  were  boat's  crew,  the 
remainder  being  fresh  labor  recruits. 

"Of  course  it  was  an  accident,"  spoke  up 
the  Aria's  mate,  Jacobs,  a  slender,  dark- 
eyed  man  who  looked  more  a  professor  than 
a  sailor.  "Johnny  Bedip  nearly  had  the 
same  kind  of  accident.  He  was  bringing 
back  several  from  a  flogging,  when  they 
capsized  him.  But  he  knew  how  to  swim  as 
well  as  they,  and  two  of  them  were  drowned. 
He  used  a  boat-stretcher  and  a  revolver. 
Of  course  it  was  an  accident." 

"Quite    common,    them    accidents,"    re- 


TH£  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          209 

marked  the  skipper.  "  You  see  that  man  at 
the  wheel,  Mr.  Arkwright  ?  He's  a  man- 
eater.  Six  months  ago,  he  and  the  rest  of 
the  boat's  crew  drowned  the  then  captain  of 
the  Aria.  They  did  it  on  deck,  sir,  right 
aft  there  by  the  mizzen-traveller." 

"The  deck  was  in  a  shocking  state,"  said 
the  mate. 

"Do  I  understand —  ?"  Bertie  began. 

"Yes,  just  that,"  said  Captain  Hansen. 
"It  was  accidental  drowning." 

"But  on  deck—?" 

"Just  so.  I  don't  mind  telling  you,  in 
confidence,  of  course,  that  they  used  an 


axe." 


"This  present  crew  of  yours  ?" 

Captain  Hansen  nodded. 

"The  other  skipper  always  was  too  care 
less,"  explained  the  mate.  "He  but  just 
turned  his  back,  when  they  let  him  have  it." 

"We  haven't  any  show  down  here,"  was 
the  skipper's  complaint.  "The  government 
protects  a  nigger  against  a  white  every  time. 
You  can't  shoot  first.  You've  got  to  give 


210          THE   TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

the  nigger  first  shot,  or  else  the  government 
calls  it  murder  and  you  go  to  Fiji.  That's 
why  there's  so  many  drowning  accidents." 

Dinner  was  called,  and  Bertie  and  the 
skipper  went  below,  leaving  the  mate  to 
watch  on  deck. 

"Keep  an  eye  out  for  that  black  devil, 
Auiki,"  was  the  skipper's  parting  caution. 
"I  haven't  liked  his  looks  for  several  days." 

"Right  O,"  said  the  mate. 

Dinner  was  part  way  along,  and  the  skip 
per  was  in  the  middle  of  his  story  of  the  cut 
ting  out  of  the  Scottish  Chiefs. 

"Yes,"  he  was  saying,  "she  was  the  finest 
vessel  on  the  coast.  But  when  she  missed 
stays,  and  before  ever  she  hit  the  reef,  the 
canoes  started  for  her.  There  were  five 
white  men,  a  crew  of  twenty  Santa  Cruz 
boys  and  Samoans,  and  only  the  super 
cargo  escaped.  Besides,  there  were  sixty 
recruits.  They  were  all  kai-kafd.  Kai- 
kai?  —  oh,  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  mean 
they  were  eaten.  Then  there  was  the  James 
Edwards,  a  dandy-rigged — " 


THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS          211 

But  at  that  moment  there  was  a  sharp 
oath  from  the  mate  on  deck  and  a  chorus 
of  savage  cries.  A  revolver  went  off  three 
times,  and  then  was  heard  a  loud  splash. 
Captain  Hansen  had  sprung  up  the  com- 
panionway  on  the  instant,  and  Bertie's  eyes 
had  been  fascinated  by  a  glimpse  of  him 
drawing  his  revolver  as  he  sprang.  Bertie 
went  up  more  circumspectly,  hesitating 
before  he  put  his  head  above  the  com- 
panionway  slide.  But  nothing  happened. 
The  mate  was  shaking  with  excitement,  his 
revolver  in  his  hand.  Once  he  startled, 
and  half-jumped  around,  as  if  danger 
threatened  his  back. 

"One  of  the  natives  fell  overboard,"  he 
was  saying,  in  a  queer  tense  voice.  "He 
couldn't  swim." 

"Who  was  it?"  the  skipper  demanded. 

"Auiki,"  was  the  answer. 

"But  I  say,  you  know,  I  heard  shots," 
Bertie  said,  in  trembling  eagerness,  for  he 
scented  adventure,  and  adventure  that  was 
happily  over  with. 


212          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

The  mate  whirled  upon  him,  snarling : 

"It's  a  damned  lie.  There  ain't  been 
a  shot  fired.  The  nigger  fell  overboard." 

Captain  Hansen  regarded  Bertie  with  un 
blinking,  lack-lustre  eyes. 

"I  —  I  thought  —  "  Bertie  was  begin 
ning. 

"Shots  ?"  said  Captain  Hansen,  dreamily. 
"Shots  ?  Did  you  hear  any  shots,  Mr. 
Jacobs?" 

"Not  a  shot,"  replied  Mr.  Jacobs. 

The  skipper  looked  at  his  guest  trium 
phantly,  and  said  : 

"Evidently  an  accident.  Let  us  go  down, 
Mr.  Arkwright,  and  finish  dinner." 

Bertie  slept  that  night  in  the  captain's 
cabin,  a  tiny  stateroom  off  the  main-cabin. 
The  for'ard  bulkhead  was  decorated  with 
a  stand  of  rifles.  Over  the  bunk  were  three 
more  rifles.  Under  the  bunk  was  a  big 
drawer,  which,  when  he  pulled  it  out,  he 
found  filled  with  ammunition,  dynamite,  and 
several  boxes  of  detonators.  He  elected  to 
take  the  settee  on  the  opposite  side.  Lying 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          213 

conspicuously  on  the  small  table,  was  the 
Aria's  log.  Bertie  did  not  know  that  it 
had  been  especially  prepared  for  the  occa 
sion  by  Captain  Malu,  and  he  read  therein 
how  on  September  21,  two  boat's  crew  had 
fallen  overboard  and  been  drowned.  Bertie 
read  between  the  lines  and  knew  better. 
He  read  how  the  Arlrfs  whale-boat  had  been 
bushwhacked  at  Su'u  and  had  lost  three 
men ;  of  how  the  skipper  discovered  the 
cook  stewing  human  flesh  on  the  galley 
fire  —  flesh  purchased  by  the  boat's  crew 
ashore  in  Fui ;  of  how  an  accidental  dis 
charge  of  dynamite,  while  signalling,  had 
killed  another  boat's  crew ;  of  night  attacks  ; 
ports  fled  from  between  the  dawns  ;  attacks 
by  bushmen  in  mangrove  swamps  and  by 
fleets  of  salt-water  men  in  the  larger  pas 
sages.  One  item  that  occurred  with  monot 
onous  frequency  was  death  by  dysentery. 
He  noticed  with  alarm  that  two  white  men 
had  so  died  —  guests,  like  himself,  on  the 
Aria. 

"I  say>  you  know,"  Bertie  said  next  day 


2i4          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

to  Captain  Hansen.  "I've  been  glancing 
through  your  log." 

The  skipper  displayed  quick  vexation  that 
the  log  had  been  left  lying  about. 

"And  all  that  dysentery,  you  know,  that's 
all  rot,  just  like  the  accidental  drownings," 
Bertie  continued.  "What  does  dysentery 
really  stand  for  ?" 

The  skipper  openly  admired  his  guest's 
acumen,  stiffened  himself  to  make  indignant 
denial,  then  gracefully  surrendered. 

"You  see,  it's  like  this,  Mr.  Arkwright. 
These  islands  have  got  a  bad  enough  name 
as  it  is.  It's  getting  harder  every  day  to 
sign  on  white  men.  Suppose  a  man  is 
killed.  The  company  has  to  pay  through 
the  nose  for  another  man  to  take  the  job. 
But  if  the  man  merely  dies  of  sickness,  it's 
all  right.  The  new  chums  don't  mind 
disease.  What  they  draw  the  line  at  is 
being  murdered.  I  thought  the  skipper  of 
the  Aria  had  died  of  dysentery  when  I  took 
his  billet.  Then  it  was  too  late.  I'd  signed 
the  contract." 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          215 

"Besides,"  said  Mr.  Jacobs,  "there's 
altogether  too  many  accidental  drownings 
anyway.  It  don't  look  right.  It's  the 
fault  of  the  government.  A  white  man 
hasn't  a  chance  to  defend  himself  from  the 
niggers." 

"Yes,  look  at  the  Princess  and  that 
Yankee  mate,"  the  skipper  took  up  the  tale. 
"  She  carried  five  white  men  besides  a  govern 
ment  agent.  The  captain,  the  agent,  and 
the  supercargo  were  ashore  in  the  two  boats. 
They  were  killed  to  the  last  man.  The  mate 
and  boson,  with  about  fifteen  of  the  crew  — 
Samoans  and  Tongans  —  were  on  board. 
A  crowd  of  niggers  came  off  from  shore. 
First  thing  the  mate  knew,  the  boson  and 
the  crew  were  killed  in  the  first  rush.  The 
mate  grabbed  three  cartridge-belts  and  two 
,  Winchesters  and  skinned  up  to  the  cross- 
trees.  He  was  the  sole  survivor,  and  you 
can't  blame  him  for  being  mad.  He  pumped 
one  rifle  till  it  got  so  hot  he  couldn't  hold  it, 
then  he  pumped  the  other.  The  deck  was 
black  with  niggers.  He  cleaned  them  out. 


216         THE  TERRIBLE  SOLOMONS 

He  dropped  them  as  they  went  over  the  rail, 
and  he  dropped  them  as  fast  as  they  picked 
up  their  paddles.  Then  they  jumped  into 
the  water  and  started  to  swim  for  it,  and, 
being  mad,  he  got  half  a  dozen  more.  And 
what  did  he  get  for  it  ?" 

"Seven  years  in  Fiji,"  snapped  the  mate. 

"The  government  said  he  wasn't  justified 
in  shooting  after  they'd  taken  to  the  water," 
the  skipper  explained. 

"And  that's  why  they  die  of  dysentery 
nowadays,"  the  mate  added. 

"Just  fancy,"  said  Bertie,  as  he  felt  a  long 
ing  for  the  cruise  to  be  over. 

Later  on  in  the  day  he  interviewed  the 
black  who  had  been  pointed  out  to  him  as 
a  cannibal.  This  fellow's  name  was  Sumasai. 
He  had  spent  three  years  on  a  Queensland 
plantation.  He  had  been  to  Samoa,  and 
Fiji,  and  Sydney;  and  as  a  boat's  crew  had 
been  on  recruiting  schooners  through  New 
Britain,  New  Ireland,  New  Guinea,  and  the 
Admiralties.  Also,  he  was  a  wag,  and  he 
had  taken  a  line  on  his  skipper's  conduct. 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          217 

Yes,  he  had  eaten  many  men.  How  many  ? 
He  could  not  remember  the  tally.  Yes, 
white  men,  too ;  they  were  very  good,  unless 
they  were  sick.  He  had  once  eaten  a  sick 
one. 

"My  word  !"  he  cried,  at  the  recollection. 
"Me  sick  plenty  along  him.  My  belly 
walk  about  too  much." 

Bertie  shuddered,  and  asked  about  heads. 
Yes,  Sumasai  had  several  hidden  ashore, 
in  good  condition,  sun-dried,  and  smoke- 
cured.  One  was  of  the  captain  of  a  schooner. 
It  had  long  whiskers.  He  would  sell  it  for 
two  quid.  Black  men's  heads  he  would  sell 
for  one  quid.  He  had  some  pickaninny 
heads,  in  poor  condition,  that  he  would  let 
go  for  ten  bob. 

Five  minutes  afterward,  Bertie  found 
himself  sitting  on  the  companionway-slide 
alongside  a  black  with  a  horrible  skin  disease. 
He  sheered  off,  and  on  inquiry  was  told  that 
it  was  leprosy.  He  hurried  below  and 
washed  himself  with  antiseptic  soap.  He 
took  many  antiseptic  washes  in  the  course 


218          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

of  the  day,  for  every  native  on  board  was 
afflicted  with  malignant  ulcers  of  one  sort 
or  another. 

As  the  Aria  drew  in  to  an  anchorage  in  the 
midst  of  mangrove  swamps,  a  double  row  of 
barbed  wire  was  stretched  around  above  her 
rail.  That  looked  like  business,  and  when 
Bertie  saw  the  shore  canoes  alongside,  armed 
with  spears,  bows  and  arrows,  and  Sniders, 
he  wished  more  earnestly  than  ever  that  the 
cruise  was  over. 

That  evening  the  natives  were  slow  in 
leaving  the  ship  at  sundown.  A  number 
of  them  checked  the  mate  when  he  ordered 
them  ashore. 

"Never  mind,  I'll  fix  them,"  said  Captain 
Hansen,  diving  below. 

When  he  came  back,  he  showed  Bertie 
a  stick  of  dynamite  attached  to  a  fish-hook. 
Now  it  happens  that  a  paper-wrapped 
bottle  of  chlorodyne  with  a  piece  of  harmless 
fuse  projecting  can  fool  anybody.  It  fooled 
Bertie,  and  it  fooled  the  natives.  When 
Captain  Hansen  lighted  the  fuse  and  hooked 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          219 

the  fish-hook  into  the  tail-end  of  a  native's 
loin-cloth,  that  native  was  smitten  with  so 
ardent  a  desire  for  the  shore  that  he  forgot 
to  shed  the  loin-cloth.  He  started  for'ard, 
the  fuse  sizzling  and  spluttering  at  his  rear, 
the  natives  in  his  path  taking  headers  over 
the  barbed  wire  at  every  jump.  Bertie  was 
horror-stricken.  So  was  Captain  Hansen. 
He  had  forgotten  his  twenty-five  recruits,  on 
each  of  which  he  had  paid  thirty  shillings  ad 
vance.  They  went  over  the  side  along  with 
the  shore-dwelling  folk  and  followed  by  him 
who  trailed  the  sizzling  chlorodyne  bottle. 

Bertie  did  not  see  the  bottle  go  off;  but 
the  mate  opportunely  discharging  a  stick 
of  real  dynamite  aft  where  it  would  harm 
nobody,  Bertie  would  have  sworn  in  any 
admiralty  court  to  a  nigger  blown  to  flinders. 

The  flight  of  the  twenty-five  recruits 
had  actually  cost  the  Aria  forty  pounds, 
and,  since  they  had  taken  to  the  bush, 
there  was  no  hope  of  recovering  them.  The 
skipper  and  his  mate  proceeded  to  drown 
their  sorrow  in  cold  tea.  The  cold  tea 


220          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

was  in  whiskey  bottles,  so  Bertie  did  not 
know  it  was  cold  tea  they  were  mopping 
up.  All  he  knew  was  that  the  two  men  got 
very  drunk  and  argued  eloquently  and 
at  length  as  to  whether  the  exploded  nigger 
should  be  reported  as  a  case  of  dysentery 
or  as  an  accidental  drowning.  When  they 
snored  off  to  sleep,  he  was  the  only  white 
man  left,  and  he  kept  a  perilous  watch 
till  dawn,  in  fear  of  an  attack  from  shore 
and  an  uprising  of  the  crew. 

Three  more  days  the  Aria  spent  on  the 
coast,  and  three  more  nights  the  skipper  and 
the  mate  drank  overfondly  of  cold  tea,  leav 
ing  Bertie  to  keep  the  watch.  They  knew 
he  could  be  depended  upon,  while  he  was 
equally  certain  that  if  he  lived,  he  would  re 
port  their  drunken  conduct  to  Captain  Malu. 
Then  the  Aria  dropped  anchor  at  Reminge 
Plantation,  on  Guadalcanar,  and  Bertie 
landed  onr  the  beach  with  a  sigh  of  relief  and 
shook  hands  with  the  manager.  Mr.  Harri- 
well  was  ready  for  him. 

"Now  you  mustn't  be  alarmed  if  some 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          221 

of  our  fellows  seem  downcast,"  Mr.  Harri- 
well  said,  having  drawn  him  aside  in  con 
fidence.  "There's  been  talk  of  an  out 
break,  and  two  or  three  suspicious  signs 
I'm  willing  to  admit,  but  personally  I 
think  it's  all  poppycock." 

"How  —  how  many  blacks  have  you 
on  the  plantation?"  Bertie  asked,  with  a 
sinking  heart. 

"We're  working  four  hundred  just  now," 
replied  Mr.  Harriwell,  cheerfully;  "but 
the  three  of  us,  with  you,  of  course,  and  the 
skipper  and  mate  of  the  Aria,  can  handle 
them  all  right." 

Bertie  turned  to  meet  one  McTavish, 
the  storekeeper,  who  scarcely  acknowl 
edged  the  introduction,  such  was  his  eager 
ness  to  present  his  resignation. 

"It  being  that  I'm  a  married  man,  Mr. 
Harriwell,  I  can't  very  well  afford  to  re 
main  on  longer.  Trouble  is  working  up, 
as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face.  The 
niggers  are  going  to  break  out,  and  there'll 
be  another  Hohono  horror  here." 


222          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 


"What's  a  Hohono  horror?"  Bertie 
asked,  after  the  storekeeper  had  been  per 
suaded  to  remain  until  the  end  of  the 
month." 

"Oh,  he  means  Hohono  Plantation,  on 
Ysabel,"  said  the  manager.  "The  niggers 
killed  the  five  white  men  ashore,  captured 
the  schooner,  killed  the  captain  and  mate, 
and  escaped  in  a  body  to  Malaita.  But 
I  always  said  they  were  careless  on  Ho 
hono.  They  won't  catch  us  napping  here. 
Come  along,  Mr  Arkwright,  and  see  our 
view  from  the  veranda." 

Bertie  was  too  busy  wondering  how  he 
could  get  away  to  Tulagi  to  the  Commis 
sioner's  house,  to  see  much  of  the  view. 
He  was  still  wondering,  when  a  rifle  ex 
ploded  very  near  to  him,  behind  his  back. 
At  the  same  moment  his  arm  was  nearly 
dislocated,  so  eagerly  did  Mr.  Harriwell 
drag  him  indoors. 

"I  say,  old  man,  that  was  a  close  shave," 
said  the  manager,  pawing  him  over  to  see  if 
he  had  been  hit.  "I  can't  tell  you  how 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          223 

sorry  I   am.     But  it  was   broad   daylight, 
and  I  never  dreamed." 

Bertie  was  beginning  to  turn  pale. 

"They  got  the  other  manager  that  way," 
McTavish  vouchsafed.  "And  a  dashed 
fine  chap  he  was.  Blew  his  brains  out  all 
over  the  veranda.  You  noticed  that  dark 
stain  there  between  the  steps  and  the 
door?" 

Bertie  was  ripe  for  the  cocktail  which 
Mr.  Harriwell  pitched  in  and  compounded 
for  him ;  but  before  he  could  drink  it,  a 
man  in  riding  trousers  and  puttees  entered. 

"What's  the  matter  now?"  the  man 
ager  asked,  after  one  look  at  the  new 
comer's  face.  "Is  the  river  up  again  ?" 

"River  be  blowed  —  it's  the  niggers. 
Stepped  out  of  the  cane-grass,  not  a  dozen 
feet  away,  and  whopped  at  me.  It  was 
a  Snider,  and  he  shot  from  the  hip.  Now 
what  I  want  to  know  is  where'd  he  get 
that  Snider  ?  —  Oh,  I  beg  pardon.  Glad 
to  know  you,  Mr.  Arkwright." 

"Mr.  Brown  is  my  assistant,"  explained 


224          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

Mr.  Harriwell.  "And  now  let's  have  that 
drink." 

"But  where'd  he  get  that  Snider?"  Mr. 
Brown  insisted.  "I  always  objected  to 
keeping  those  guns  on  the  premises." 

"They're  still  there,"  Mr.  Harriwell  said, 
with  a  show  of  heat. 

Mr.  Brown  smiled  incredulously. 

"Come  along  and  see,"  said  the  man 
ager. 

Bertie  joined  the  procession  into  the 
office,  where  Mr.  Harriwell  pointed  tri 
umphantly  at  a  big  packing-case  in  a  dusty 
corner. 

"Well,  then,  where  did  the  beggar  get 
that  Snider  ?"  harped  Mr.  Brown. 

But  just  then  McTavish  lifted  the  pack 
ing-case.  The  manager  started,  then  tore 
off  the  lid.  The  case  was  empty.  They 
gazed  at  one  another  in  horrified  silence. 
Harriwell  drooped  wearily. 

Then  McVeigh  cursed. 

"What  I  contended  all  along  —  the 
house-boys  are  not  to  be  trusted." 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          225 

"It  does  look  serious/'  Harriwell  ad 
mitted,  "but  we'll  come  through  it  all 
right.  What  the  sanguinary  niggars  need 
is  a  shaking  up.  Will  you  gentlemen  please 
bring  your  rifles  to  dinner,  and  will  you, 
Mr.  Brown,  kindly  prepare  forty  or  fifty 
sticks  of  dynamite.  Make  the  fuses  good 
and  short.  We'll  give  them  a  lesson.  And 
now,  gentlemen,  dinner  is  served." 

One  thing  that  Bertie  detested  was  rice 
and  curry,  so  it  happened  that  he  alone  par 
took  of  an  inviting  omelet.  He  had  quite 
finished  his  plate,  when  Harriwell  helped 
himself  to  the  omelet.  One  mouthful  he 
tasted,  then  spat  out  vociferously. 

"That's  the  second  time,"  McTavish 
announced  ominously. 

Harriwell  was  still  hawking  and  spitting. 

"Second  time,  what?"  Bertie  quavered. 

"Poison,"  was  the  answer.  "That  cook 
will  be  hanged  yet." 

"That's  the  way  the  bookkeeper  went 
out  at  Cape  Marsh,"  Brown  spoke  up. 
"  Died  horribly.  They  said  on  the  Jessie 
Q 


226          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

that  they  heard  him  screaming  three  miles 
away." 

"  I'll  put  the  cook  in  irons,"  sputtered 
Harriwell.  "  Fortunately  we  discovered  it 
in  time." 

Bertie  sat  paralysed.  There  was  no 
color  in  his  face.  He  attempted  to  speak, 
but  only  an  inarticulate  gurgle  resulted. 
All  eyed  him  anxiously. 

"Don't  say  it,  don't  say  it,"  McTavish 
cried  in  a  tense  voice. 

"Yes,  I  ate  it,  plenty  of  it,  a  whole 
plateful  !"  Bertie  cried  explosively,  like  a 
diver  suddenly  regaining  breath. 

The  awful  silence  continued  half  a  minute 
longer,  and  he  read  his  fate  in  their  eyes. 

"Maybe  it  wasn't  poison  after  all," 
said  Harriwell,  dismally. 

"Call  in  the  cook,"  said  Brown. 

In  came  the  cook,  a  grinning  black  boy, 
nose-spiked  and  ear-plugged. 

"Here,  you,  Wi-wi,  what  name  that?" 
Harriwell  bellowed,  pointing  accusingly  at 
the  omelet. 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          227 

Wi-wi  was  very  naturally  frightened  and 
embarrassed. 

"Him  good  fella  kai-kai"  he  murmured 
apologetically. 

"Make  him  eat  it,"  suggested  McTavish. 
"That's  a  proper  test." 

Harriwell  filled  a  spoon  with  the  stuff 
and  jumped  for  the  cook,  who  fled  in  panic. 

"That  settles  it,"  was  Brown's  solemn 
pronouncement.  "He  won't  eat  it." 

"Mr.  Brown,  will  you  please  go  and  put 
the  irons  on  him  ?  "  Harriwell  turned  cheer 
fully  to  Bertie.  "It's  all  right,  old  man, 
the  Commissioner  will  deal  with  him,  and 
if  you  die,  depend  upon  it,  he  will  be 
hanged." 

"Don't  think  the  government'll  do  it," 
objected  McTavish. 

"But  gentlemen,  gentlemen,"  Bertie 
cried.  "In  the  meantime  think  of  me." 

Harriwell  shrugged  his  shoulders  pity 
ingly. 

"Sorry,  old  man,  but  it's  a  native  poison, 
and  there  are  no  known  antidotes  for 


228          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

native  poisons.  Try  and  compose  yourself, 
and  if—" 

Two  sharp  reports  of  a  rifle  from  without, 
interrupted  the  discourse,  and  Brown,  en 
tering,  reloaded  his  rifle  and  sat  down  to 
table. 

"The  cook's  dead,"  he  said.  "Fever. 
A  rather  sudden  attack." 

"I  was  just  telling  Mr.  Arkwright  that 
there  are  no  antidotes  for  native  poi 


sons  —  " 


"Except  gin,"  said  Brown. 

Harriwell  called  himself  an  absent- 
minded  idiot  and  rushed  for  the  gin 
bottle. 

"Neat,  man,  neat,"  he  warned  Bertie, 
who  gulped  down  a  tumbler  two-thirds 
full  of  the  raw  spirits,  and  coughed  and 
choked  from  the  angry  bite  of  it  till  the 
tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 

Harriwell  took  his  pulse  and  tempera 
ture,  made  a  show  of  looking  out  for  him, 
and  doubted  that  the  omelet  had  been 
poisoned.  Brown  and  McTavish  also 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          229 

doubted ;  but  Bertie  discerned  an  insincere 
ring  in  their  voices.  His  appetite  had 
left  him,  and  he  took  his  own  pulse  stealth 
ily  under  the  table.  There  was  no  ques 
tion  but  what  it  was  increasing,  but  he 
failed  to  ascribe  it  to  the  gin  he  had  taken. 
McTavish,  rifle  in  hand,  went  out  on 
the  veranda  to  reconnoitre. 

"They're  massing  up  at  the  cook-house," 
was  his  report.  "And  they've  no  end  of 
Sniders.  My  idea  is  to  sneak  around  on 
the  other  side  and  take  them  in  flank. 
Strike  the  first  blow,  you  know.  Will 
you  come  along,  Brown  ?" 

Harriwell  ate  on  steadily,  while  Bertie 
discovered  that  his  pulse  had  leaped  up 
five  beats.  Nevertheless,  he  could  not  help 
jumping  when  the  rifles  began  to  go  off. 
Above  the  scattering  of  Sniders  could  be 
heard  the  pumping  of  Brown's  and  Mc- 
Tavish's  Winchesters  —  all  against  a  back 
ground  of  demoniacal  screeching  and  yell 
ing. 

"They've  got  them  on  the  run,"  Harri- 


230          THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS 

well  remarked,  as  voices  and  gunshots 
faded  away  in  the  distance. 

Scarcely  were  Brown  and  McTavish 
back  at  the  table  when  the  latter  recon 
noitred. 

"They've  got  dynamite,"  he  said. 

"Then  let's  charge  them  with  dynamite," 
Harriwell  proposed. 

Thrusting  half  a  dozen  sticks  each  into 
their  pockets  and  equipping  themselves 
with  lighted  cigars,  they  started  for  the 
door.  And  just  then  it  happened.  They 
blamed  McTavish  for  it  afterward,  and  he 
admitted  that  the  charge  had  been  a  trifle 
excessive.  But  at  any  rate  it  went  off 
under  the  house,  which  lifted  up  corner- 
wise  and  settled  back  on  its  foundations. 
Half  the  china  on  the  table  was  shattered, 
while  the  eight-day  clock  stopped.  Yell 
ing  for  vengeance,  the  three  men  rushed 
out  into  the  night,  and  the  bombardment 
began. 

When  they  returned,  there  was  no  Bertie. 
He  had  dragged  himself  away  to  the  office, 


THE  TERRIBLE   SOLOMONS          231 

barricaded  himself  in,  and  sunk  upon  the 
floor  in  a  gin-soaked  nightmare,  wherein 
he  died  a  thousand  deaths  while  the  val 
orous  fight  went  on  around  him.  In  the 
morning,  sick  and  headachey  from  the 
gin,  he  crawled  out  to  find  the  sun  still 
in  the  sky  and  God  presumably  in  heaven, 
for  his  hosts  were  alive  and  uninjured. 

Harriwell  pressed  him  to  stay  on  longer, 
but  Bertie  insisted  on  sailing  immediately 
on  the  Aria  for  Tulagi,  where,  until  the 
following  steamer  day,  he  stuck  close  by 
the  Commissioner's  house.  There  were 
lady  tourists  on  the  outgoing  steamer,  and 
Bertie  was  again  a  hero,  while  Captain 
Malu,  as  usual,  passed  unnoticed.  But 
Captain  Malu  sent  back  from  Sydney  two 
cases  of  the  best  Scotch  whiskey  on  the 
market,  for  he  was  not  able  to  make  up 
his  mind  as  to  whether  it  was  Captain 
Hansen  or  Mr.  Harriwell  who  had  given 
Bertie  Arkwright  the  more  gorgeous  in 
sight  into  life  in  the  Solomons. 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 


"  A"  |  ^HE  black  will  never  understand  the 
white,  nor  the  white  the  black,  as 
long  as  black  is  black  and  white  is 
white." 

So  said  Captain  Woodward.  We  sat  in 
the  parlor  of  Charley  Roberts'  pub  in  Apia, 
drinking  long  Abu  Hameds  compounded  and 
shared  with  us  by  the  aforesaid  Chr^ley 
Roberts,  who  claimed  the  recipe  direct  from 
Stevens,  famous  for  having  invented  the 
Abu  Hamed  at  a  time  when  he  was 
spurred  on  by  Nile  thirst  —  the  Stevens 
who  was  responsible  for  "With  Kitchener 
to  Kartoun,"  and  who  passed  out  at  the 
siege  of  Ladysmith. 

Captain  Woodward,  short  and  squat, 
elderly,  burned  by  forty  years  of  tropic  sun, 
and  with  the  most  beautiful  liquid  brown 
eyes  I  ever  saw  in  a  man,  spoke  from  a  vast 
experience.  The  crisscross  of  scars  on  his 
235 


236     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

bald  pate  bespoke  a  tomahawk  intimacy 
with  the  black,  and  of  equal  intimacy  was 
the  advertisement,  front  and  rear,  on  the 
right  side  of  his  neck,  where  an  arrow  had 
at  one  time  entered  and  been  pulled  clean 
through.  As  he  explained,  he  had  been  in 
a  hurry  on  that  occasion  —  the  arrow  im 
peded  his  running  —  and  he  felt  that  he 
could  not  take  the  time  to  break  off  the 
head  and  pull  out  the  shaft  the  way  it  had 
come  in.  At  the  present  moment  he  was 
commander  of  the  Savaii,  the  big  steamer 
that  recruited  labor  from  the  westward  for 
the  German  plantations  on  Samoa. 

"Half  the  trouble  is  the  stupidity  of  the 
whites,"  said  Roberts,  pausing  to  take  a 
swig  from  his  glass  and  to  curse  the  Samoan 
bar-boy  in  affectionate  terms.  "If  the 
white  man  would  lay  himself  out  a  bit  to 
understand  the  workings  of  the  black  man's 
rnind,  most  of  the  messes  would  be  avoided." 

"I've  seen  a  few  who  claimed  they  under 
stood  niggers,"  Captain  Woodward  retorted, 
"and  I  always  took  notice  that  they  were 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN     237 

the  first  to  be  kai-katd  (eaten).  Look  at 
the  missionaries  in  New  Guinea  and  the 
New  Hebrides  —  the  martyr  isle  of  Erro- 
manga  and  all  the  rest.  Look  at  the  Aus 
trian  expedition  that  was  cut  to  pieces  in  the 
Solomons,  in  the  bush  of  Gaudalcanar. 
And  look  at  the  traders  themselves,  with 
a  score  of  years'  experience,  making  their 
brag  that  no  nigger  would  ever  get  them, 
and  whose  heads  to  this  day  are  ornament 
ing  the  rafters  of  the  canoe  houses.  There 
was  old  Johnny  Simons  —  twenty-six  years 
on  the  raw  edges  of  Melanesia,  swore  he 
knew  the  niggers  like  a  book  and  that  they'd 
never  do  for  him,  and  he  passed  out  at 
Marovo  Lagoon,  New  Georgia,  had  his 
head  sawed  off  by  a  black  Mary  (woman) 
and  an  old  nigger  with  only  one  leg,  having 
left  the  other  leg  in  the  mouth  of  a  shark 
while  diving  for  dynamited  fish.  There 
was  Billy  Watts,  horrible  reputation  as  a 
nigger  killer,  a  man  to  scare  the  devil.  I 
remember  lying  at  Cape  Little,  New  Ireland 
you  know,  when  the  niggers  stole  half  a  case 


238     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

of  trade-tobacco  —  cost  him  about  three 
dollars  and  a  half.  In  retaliation  he  turned 
out,  shot  six  niggers,  smashed  up  their  war 
canoes  and  burned  two  villages.  And  it  was 
at  Cape  Little,  four  years  afterward,  that  he 
was  jumped  along  with  fifty  Buku  boys  he 
had  with  him  fishing  beche-de-mer.  In  five 
minutes  they  were  all  dead,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  three  boys  who  got  away  in  a  canoe. 
Don't  talk  to  me  about  understanding  the 
nigger.  The  white  man's  mission  is  to  farm 
the  world,  and  it's  a  big  enough  job  cut  out 
for  him.  What  time  has  he  got  left  to  under 
stand  niggers  anyway  ?" 

"Just  so,"  said  Roberts.  "And  some 
how  it  doesn't  seem  necessary,  after  all,  to 
understand  the  niggers.  In  direct  pro 
portion  to  the  white  man's  stupidity  is  his 
success  in  farming  the  world — " 

"And  putting  the  fear  of  God  into  the 
nigger's  heart,"  Captain  Woodward  blurted 
out.  "  Perhaps  you're  right,  Roberts. 
Perhaps  it's  his  stupidity  that  makes  him 
succeed,  and  surely  one  phase  of  his  stupidity 


THE   INEVITABLE   WHITE   MAN     239 

is  his  inability  to  understand  the  niggers. 
But  there's  one  thing  sure,  the  white  has  to 
run  the  niggers  whether  he  understands 
them  or  not.  It's  inevitable.  It's  fate. 

"And  of  course  the  white  man  is  inevi 
table  —  it's  the  niggers'  fate,"  Roberts  broke 
in.  "Tell  the  white  man  there's  pearl- 
shell  in  some  lagoon  infested  by  ten  thousand 
howling  cannibals,  and  he'll  head  there  all 
by  his  lonely,  with  half  a  dozen  kanaka 
divers  and  a  tin  alarm  clock  for  chronom 
eter,  all  packed  like  sardines  on  a  com 
modious,  five-ton  ketch.  Whisper  that 
there's  a  gold  strike  at  the  North  Pole,  and 
that  same  inevitable  white-skinned  creature 
will  set  out  at  once,  armed  with  pick  and 
shovel,  a  side  of  bacon,  and  the  latest  patent 
rocker  —  and  what's  more,  he'll  get  there. 
Tip  it  off  to  him  that  there's  diamonds  on 
the  red-hot  ramparts  of  hell,  and  Mr.  White 
Man  will  storm  the  ramparts  and  set  old 
Satan  himself  to  pick-and-shovel  work. 
That's  what  comes  of  being  stupid  and  in 
evitable." 


240     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

"But  I  wonder  what  the  black  man 
must  think  of  the  —  the  inevitableness," 
I  said. 

Captain  Woodward  broke  into  quiet 
laughter.  His  eyes  had  a  reminiscent 
gleam. 

"I'm  just  wondering  what  the  niggers  of 
Malu  thought  and  still  must  be  thinking  of 
the  one  inevitable  white  man  we  had  on 
board  when  we  visited  them  in  the  Duchess  " 
he  explained. 

Roberts  mixed  three  more  Abu  Hameds. 

"That  was  twenty  years  ago.  Saxtorph 
was  his  name.  He  was  certainly  the  most 
stupid  man  I  ever  saw,  but  he  was  as  inev 
itable  as  death.  There  was  only  one  thing 
that  chap  could  do,  and  that  was  shoot.  I 
remember  the  first  time  I  ran  into  him  — 
right  here  in  Apia,  twenty  years  ago.  That 
was  before  your  time,  Roberts.  I  was  sleep 
ing  at  Dutch  Henry's  hotel,  down  where  the 
market  is  now.  Ever  heard  of  him  ?  He 
made  a  tidy  stake  smuggling  arms  in  to  the 
rebels,  sold  out  his  hotel,  and  was  killed  in 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN     241 

Sydney  just  six  weeks  afterward  in  a  saloon 
row. 

"But  Saxtorph.  One  night  I'd  just  got 
to  sleep,  when  a  couple  of  cats  began  to  sing 
in  the  courtyard.  It  was  out  of  bed  and 
up  window,  water  jug  in  hand.  But  just 
then  I  heard  the  window  of  the  next  room 
go  up.  Two  shots  were  fired,  and  the  win 
dow  was  closed.  I  fail  to  impress  you  with 
the  celerity  of  the  transaction.  Ten  seconds 
at  the  outside.  Up  went  the  window,  bang 
bang  went  the  revolver,  and  down  went  the 
window.  Whoever  it  was,  he  had  never 
stopped  to  see  the  effect  of  his  shots.  He 
knew.  Do  you  follow  me  ?  —  he  knew. 
There  was  no  more  cat-concert,  and  in  the 
morning  there  lay  the  two  offenders,  stone- 
dead.  It  was  marvellous  to  me.  It  still  is 
marvellous.  First,  it  was  starlight,  and 
Saxtorph  shot  without  drawing  a  bead ; 
next,  he  shot  so  rapidly  that  the  two  reports 
were  like  a  double  report;  and  finally,  he 
knew  he  had  hit  his  marks  without  looking 
to  see. 


242     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

"Two  days  afterward  he  came  on  board 
to  see  me.  I  was  mate,  then,  on  the  Duchess, 
a  whacking  big  one-hundred-and-fifty-ton 
schooner,  a  blackbirder.  And  let  me  tell 
you  that  blackbirders  were  blackbirders  in 
those  days.  There  weren't  any  govern 
ment  inspectors,  and  no  government  pro 
tection  for  us,  either.  It  was  rough  work, 
give  and  take,  if  we  were  finished,  and  noth 
ing  said,  and  we  ran  niggers  from  every 
south  sea  island  they  didn't  kick  us  off  from. 
Well,  Saxtorph  came  on  board,  John  Sax- 
torph  was  the  name  he  gave.  He  was 
a  sandy  little  man,  hair  sandy,  complexion 
sandy,  and  eyes  sandy,  too.  Nothing  strik 
ing  about  him.  His  soul  was  as  neutral 
as  his  color  scheme.  He  said  he  was  strapped 
and  wanted  to  ship  on  board.  Would  go 
cabin-boy,  cook,  supercargo,  or  common 
sailor.  Didn't  know  anything  about  any 
of  the  billets,  but  said  that  he  was  willing  to 
learn.  I  didn't  want  him,  but  his  shooting 
had  so  impressed  me  that  I  took  him  as  com 
mon  sailor,  wages  three  pounds  per  month. 


THE   INEVITABLE   WHITE  MAN     243 

"He  was  willing  to  learn  all  right,  I'll  say 
that  much.  But  he  was  constitutionally 
unable  to  learn  anything.  He  could  no 
more  box  the  compass  than  I  could  mix 
drinks  like  Roberts  here.  And  as  for  steer 
ing,  he  gave  me  my  first  gray  hairs.  I 
never  dared  risk  him  at  the  wheel  when  we 
were  running  in  a  big  sea,  while  full-and-by 
and  close-and-by  were  insoluble  mysteries. 
Couldn't  ever  tell  the  difference  between  a 
sheet  and  a  tackle,  simply  couldn't.  The 
fore-throat-jig  and  the  jib-jig  were  all  one 
to  him.  Tell  him  to  slack  off  the  main- 
sheet,  and  before  you  know  it,  he'd  drop  the 
peak.  He  fell  overboard  three  times,  and 
he  cduldn't  swim.  But  he  was  always  cheer 
ful,  never  seasick,  and  he  was  the  most 
willing  man  I  ever  knew.  He  was  an  un 
communicative  soul.  Never  talked  about 
himself.  His  history,  so  far  as  we  were 
concerned,  began  the  day  he  signed  on  the 
Duchess.  Where  he  learned  to  shoot,  the 
stars  alone  can  tell.  He  was  a  Yankee  — 
that  much  we  knew  from  the  twang  in 


244     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

his    speech.     And    that    was    all    we    ever 
did  know. 

"And  now  we  begin  to  get  to  the  point. 
We  had  bad  luck  in  the  New  Hebrides,  only 
fourteen  boys  for  five  weeks,  and  we  ran 
up  before  the  southeast  for  the  Solomons. 
Malaita,  then  as  now,  was  good  recruiting 
ground,  and  we  ran  into  Malu,  on  the  north 
western  corner.  There's  a  shore  reef  and  an 
outer  reef,  and  a  mighty  nervous  anchorage ; 
but  we  made  it  all  right  and  fired  off  our 
dynamite  as  a  signal  to  the  niggers  to  come 
down  and  be  recruited.  In  three  days  we 
got  not  a  boy.  The  niggers  came  off  to  us 
in  their  canoes  by  hundreds,  but  they  only 
laughed  when  we  showed  them  beads  and 
calico  and  hatchets  and  talked  of  the  delights 
of  plantation  work  in  Samoa. 

"On  the  fourth  day  there  came  a  change. 
Fifty-odd  boys  signed  on  and  were  billeted 
in  the  main-hold,  with  the  freedom  of  the 
deck,  of  course.  And  of  course,  looking 
back,  this  wholesale  signing  on  was  suspi 
cious,  but  at  the  time  we  thought  some  pow- 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE   MAN      245 

erful  chief  had  removed  the  ban  against  re 
cruiting.  The  morning  of  the  fifth  day  our 
two  boats  went  ashore  as  usual  —  one  to 
cover  the  other,  you  know,  in  case  of  trouble. 
And,  as  usual,  the  fifty  niggers  on  board 
were  on  deck,  loafing,  talking,  smoking,  and 
sleeping.  Saxtorph  and  myself,  along  with 
four  other  sailors,  were  all  that  were  left  on 
board.  The  two  boats  were  manned  with 
Gilbert  Islanders.  In  the  one  were  the  cap 
tain,  the  supercargo,  and  the  recruiter.  In 
the  other,  which  was  tl\e  covering  boat 
and  which  lay  off  shore  a  hundred  yards, 
was  the  second  mate.  Both  boats  were 
well-armed,  though  trouble  was  little  ex 
pected. 

"Four  of  the  sailors,  including  Saxtorph, 
were  scraping  the  poop  rail.  The  fifth 
sailor,  rifle  in  hand,  was  standing  guard  by 
the  water-tank  just  for'ard  of  the  mainmast. 
I  was  for'ard,  putting  in  the  finishing  licks 
on  a  new  jaw  for  the  fore-gaff.  I  was  just 
reaching  for  my  pipe  where  I  had  laid  it 
down,  when  I  heard  a  shot  from  shore.  I 


246     THE   INEVITABLE   WHITE   MAN 

straightened  up  to  look.  Something  struck 
me  on  the  back  of  the  head,  partially  stun 
ning  me  and  knocking  me  to  the  deck.  My 
first  thought  was  that  something  had  carried 
away  aloft ;  but  even  as  I  went  down,  and 
before  I  struck  the  deck,  I  heard  the  devil's 
own  tattoo  of  rifles  from  the  boats,  and, 
twisting  sidewise,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
sailor  who  was  standing  guard.  Two  big 
niggers  were  holding  his  arms,  and  a  third 
nigger,  from  behind,  was  braining  him  with 
a  tomahawk. 

"I  can  see  it  now,  the  water-tank,  the 
mainmast,  the  gang  hanging  on  to  him,  the 
hatchet  descending  on  the  back  of  his  head, 
and  all  under  the  blazing  sunlight.  I  was 
fascinated  by  that  growing  vision  of  death. 
The  tomahawk  seemed  to  take  a  horribly 
long  time  to  come  down.  I  saw  it  land,  and 
the  man's  legs  give  under  him  as  he  crumpled. 
The  niggers  held  him  up  by  sheer  strength 
while  he  was  hacked  a  couple  of  times  more. 
Then  I  got  two  more  hacks  on  the  head  and 
decided  that  I  was  dead.  So  did  the  brute 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN     247 

that  was  hacking  me.  I  was  too  helpless  to 
move,  and  I  lay  there  and  watched  them 
removing  the  sentry's  head.  I  must  say 
they  did  it  slick  enough.  They  were  old 
hands  at  the  business. 

"The  riflefiring  from  the  boats  had 
ceased,  and  I  made  no  doubt  that  they  were 
finished  off  and  that  the  end  had  come  to 
everything.  It  was  only  a  matter  of  mo 
ments  when  they  would  return  for  my  head. 
They  were  evidently  taking  the  heads  from 
the  sailors  aft.  Heads  are  valuable  on 
Malaita,  especially  white  heads.  They  have 
the  place  of  honor  in  the  canoe  houses 
of  the  salt-water  natives.  What  particular 
decorative  effect  the  bushmen  get  out  of 
them  I  didn't  know,  but  they  prize  them 
just  as  much  as  the  salt-water  crowd. 

"I  had  a  dim  notion  of  escaping,  and  I 
crawled  on  hands  and  knees  to  the  winch, 
where  I  managed  to  drag  myself  to  my  feet. 
From  there  I  could  look  aft  and  see  three 
heads  on  top  the  cabin  —  the  heads  of  three 
sailors  I  had  given  orders  to  for  months. 


248     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

The  niggers  saw  me  standing,  and  started 
for  me.  I  reached  for  my  revolver,  and 
found  they  had  taken  it.  I  can't  say  that 
I  was  scared.  I've  been  near  to  death 
several  times,  but  it  never  seemed  easier 
than  right  then.  I  was  half-stunned,  and 
nothing  seemed  to  matter. 

"The  leading  nigger  had  armed  himself 
with  a  cleaver  from  the  galley,  and  he 
grimmaced  like  an  ape  as  he  prepared  to 
slice  me  down.  But  the  slice  was  never 
made.  He  went  down  on  the  deck  all  of 
a  heap,  and  I  saw  the  blood  gush  from  his 
mouth.  In  a  dim  way  I  heard  a  rifle  go 
off  and  continue  to  go  off.  Nigger  after 
nigger  went  down.  My  senses  began  to 
clear,  and  I  noted  that  there  was  never  a 
miss.  Every  time  that  rifle  went  off  a  nig 
ger  dropped.  I  sat  down  on  deck  beside 
the  winch  and  looked  up.  Perched  in  the 
crosstrees  was  Saxtorph.  How  he  had 
managed  it  I  can't  imagine,  for  he  had 
carried  up  with  him  two  Winchesters  and 
I  don't  know  how  many  bandoliers  of  am- 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN     249 

munition;  and  he  was  now  doing  the  one 
only  thing  in  this  world  that  he  was  fitted 
to  do. 

"I've  seen  shooting  and  slaughter,  but  I 
never  saw  anything  like  that.  I  sat  by  the 
winch  and  watched  the  show.  I  was  weak 
and  faint,  and  it  seemed  to  be  all  a  dream. 
Bang,  bang,  bang,  bang,  went  his  rifle,  and 
thud,  thud,  thud,  thud,  went  the  niggers 
to  the  deck.  It  was  amazing  to  see  them 
go  down.  After  their  first  rush  to  get  me, 
when  about  a  dozen  had  dropped,  they 
seemed  paralysed;  but  he  never  left  off 
pumping  his  gun.  By  this  time  canoes  and 
the  two  boats  arrived  from  shore,  armed 
with  Sniders,  and  with  Winchesters  which 
they  had  captured  in  the  boats.  The 
fusillade  they  let  loose  on  Saxtorph  was 
tremendous.  Luckily  for  him  the  niggers 
are  only  good  at  close  range.  They  are  not 
used  to  putting  the  guns  to  their  shoulders. 
They  wait  until  they  are  right  on  top  of 
a  man,  and  then  they  shoot  from  the  hip. 
When  his  rifle  got  too  hot,  Saxtorph  changed 


250     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

off.  That  had  been  his  idea  wnen  he  carried 
two  rifles  up  with  him. 

"The  astounding  thing  was  the  rapidity 
of  his  fire.  Also,  he  never  made  a  miss. 
If  ever  anything  was  inevitable,  that  man 
was.  It  was  the  swiftness  of  it  that  made 
the  slaughter  so  appalling.  The  niggers 
did  not  have  time  to  think.  When  they  did 
manage  to  think,  they  went  over  the  side  in 
a  rush,  capsizing  the  canoes  of  course. 
Saxtorph  never  let  up.  The  water  was 
covered  with  them,  and  plump,  plump, 
plump,  he  dropped  his  bullets  into  them. 
Not  a  single  miss,  and  I  could  hear  distinctly 
the  thud  of  every  bullet  as  it  buried  in 
human  flesh. 

"The  niggers  spread  out  and  headed  for 
the  shore,  swimming.  The  water  was  car 
peted  with  bobbing  heads,  and  I  stood  up, 
as  in  a  dream,  and  watched  it  all  —  the 
bobbing  heads  and  the  heads  that  ceased  to 
bob.  Some  of  the  long  shots  were  magnifi 
cent.  Only  one  man  reached  the  beach, 
but  as  he  stood  up  to  wade  ashore,  Saxtorph 


THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN     251 

got  him.  It  was  beautiful.  And  when  a 
couple  of  niggers  ran  down  to  drag  him  out 
of  the  water,  Saxtorph  got  them,  too. 

"I  thought  everything  was  over  then, 
when  I  heard  the  rifle  go  off  again.  A  nig 
ger  had  come  out  of  the  cabin  companion 
on  the  run  for  the  rail  and  gone  down  in 
the  middle  of  it.  The  cabin  must  have 
been  full  of  them.  I  counted  twenty. 
They  came  up  one  at  a  time  and  jumped 
for  the  rail.  But  they  never  got  there.  It 
reminded  me  of  trapshooting.  A  black 
body  would  pop  out  of  the  companion,  bang 
would  go  Saxtorph' s  rifle,  and  down  would 
go  the  black  body.  Of  course,  those  below 
did  not  know  what  was  happening  on  deck, 
so  they  continued  to  pop  out  until  the  last 
one  was  finished  off. 

"Saxtorph  waited  a  while  to  make  sure, 
and  then  came  down  on  deck.  He  and  I 
were  all  that  were  left  of  the  Duchess's 
complement,  and  I  was  pretty  well  to  the 
bad,  while  he  was  helpless  now  that  the 
shooting  was  over.  Under  my  direction 


252     THE   INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

he  washed  out  my  scalp-wounds  and  sewed 
them  up.  A  big  drink  of  whiskey  braced 
me  to  make  an  effort  to  get  out.  There  was 
nothing  else  to  do.  All  the  rest  were  dead. 
We  tried  to  get  up  sail,  Saxtorph  hoisting 
and  I  holding  the  turn.  He  was  once  more 
the  stupid  lubber.  He  couldn't  hoist  worth 
a  cent,  and  when  I  fell  in  a  faint,  it  looked  all 
up  with  us. 

"When  I  came  to,  Saxtorph  was  sitting 
helplessly  on  the  rail,  waiting  to  ask  me  what 
he  should  do.  I  told  him  to  overhaul  the 
wounded  and  see  if  there  were  any  able  to 
crawl.  He  gathered  together  six.  One,  I 
remember,  had  a  broken  leg ;  but  Saxtorph 
said  his  arms  were  all  right.  I  lay  in  the 
shade,  brushing  the  flies  off  and  directing 
operations,  while  Saxtorph  bossed  his  hos 
pital  gang.  I'll  be  blessed  if  he  didn't  make 
those  poor  niggers  heave  at  every  rope  on 
the  pin-rails  before  he  found  the  halyards. 
One  of  them  let  go  the  rope  in  the  midst  of 
the  hoisting  and  slipped  down  to  the  deck 
dead ;  but  Saxtorph  hammered  the  others 


THE   INEVITABLE   WHITE  MAN     253 

and  made  them  stick  by  the  job.  When 
the  fore  and  main  were  up,  I  told  him  to 
knock  the  shackle  out  of  the  anchor  chain 
and  let  her  go.  I  had  had  myself  helped  aft 
to  the  wheel,  where  I  was  going  to  make  a 
shift  at  steering.  I  can't  guess  how  he  did 
it,  but  instead  of  knocking  the  shackle  out, 
down  went  the  second  anchor,  and  there 
we  were  doubly  moored. 

"In  the  end  he  managed  to  knock  both 
shackles  out  and  raise  the  staysail  and  jib, 
and  the  Duchess  filled  away  for  the  entrance. 
Our  decks  were  a  spectacle.  Dead  and 
dying  niggers  were  everywhere.  They  were 
wedged  away  some  of  them  in  the  most  incon 
ceivable  places.  The  cabin  was  full  of  them 
where  they  had  crawled  off  the  deck  and 
cashed  in.  I  put  Saxtorph  and  his  grave 
yard  gang  to  work  heaving  them  overside, 
and  over  they  went,  the  living  and  the  dead. 
The  sharks  had  fat  pickings  that  day.  Of 
course  our  four  murdered  sailors  went  the 
same  way.  Their  heads,  however,  we  put 
in  a  sack  with  weights,  so  that  by  no  chance 


254     THE  INEVITABLE  WHITE  MAN 

should  they  drift  on  the  beach  and  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  niggers. 

"Our  five  prisoners  I  decided  to  use  as 
crew,  but  they  decided  otherwise.  They 
watched  their  opportunity  and  went  over 
the  side.  Saxtorph  got  two  in  mid-air  with 
his  revolver,  and  would  have  shot  the  other 
three  in  the  water  if  I  hadn't  stopped  him. 
I  was  sick  of  the  slaughter,  you  see,  and, 
besides,  they'd  helped  work  the  schooner 
out.  But  it  was  mercy  thrown  away,  for 
the  sharks  got  the  three  of  them. 

"  I  had  brain  fever  or  something  after  we 
got  clear  of  the  land.  Anyway,  the  Duchess 
lay  hove  to  for  three  weeks,  when  I  pulled 
myself  together  and  we  jogged  on  with  her  to 
Sydney.  Anyway  those  niggers  of  Malu 
learned  the  everlasting  lesson  that  it  is  not 
good  to  monkey  with  a  white  man.  In  their 
case,  Saxtorph  was  certainly  inevitable." 

Charley  Roberts  emitted  a  long  whistle 
and  said : 

"Well  I  should  say  so.  But  whatever 
became  of  Saxtorph?" 


THE   INEVITABLE   WHITE  MAN     255 

"He  drifted  into  seal  hunting  and  became 
a  crackerjack.  For  six  years  he  was  high 
line  of  both  the  Victoria  and  San  Francisco 
fleets.  The  seventh  year  his  schooner  was 
seized  in  Bering  Sea  by  a  Russian  cruiser,  and 
all  hands,  so  the  talk  went,  were  slammed 
into  the  Siberian  salt  mines.  At  least  I've 
never  heard  of  him  since." 

"Farming  the  world,"  Roberts  muttered. 
"  Farming  the  world.  Well  here's  to  them. 
Somebody's  got  to  do  it  —  farm  the  world, 
I  mean." 

Captain  Woodward  rubbed  the  criss 
crosses  on  his  bald  head. 

"I've  done  my  share  of  it,"  he  said. 
"Forty  years  now.  This  will  be  my  last 
trip.  Then  I'm  going  home  to  stay." 

"I'll  wager  the  wine  you  don't,"  Roberts 
challenged.  "You'll  die  in  the  harness,  not 
at  home." 

Captain  Woodward  promptly  accepted 
the  bet,  but  personally  I  think  Charley 
Roberts  has  the  best  of  it. 


THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

THE  Pyrenees,  her  iron  sides  pressed 
low  in  the  water  by  her  cargo  of 
wheat,  rolled  sluggishly,  and  made 
it  easy  for  the  man  who  was  climbing  aboard 
from  out  a  tiny  outrigger  canoe.  As  his 
eyes  came  level  with  the  rail,  so  that  he 
could  see  inboard,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  saw  a  dim,  almost  indiscernible  haze. 
It  was  more  like  an  illusion,  like  a  blurring 
film  that  had  spread  abruptly  over  his  eyes. 
He  felt  an  inclination  to  brush  it  away,  and 
the  same  instant  he  thought  that  he  was 
growing  old  and  that  it  was  time  to  send 
to  San  Francisco  for  a  pair  of  spectacles. 

As  he  came  over  the  rail  he  cast  a  glance 
aloft  at  the  tall  masts,  and,  next,  at  the 
pumps.  They  were  not  working.  There 
seemed  nothing  the  matter  with  the  big 
ship,  and  he  wondered  why  she  had  hoisted 

259 


260  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

the  signal  of  distress.  He  thought  of  his 
happy  islanders,  and  hoped  it  was  not  disease. 
Perhaps  the  ship  was  short  of  water  or  pro 
visions.  He  shook  hands  with  the  captain 
whose  gaunt  face  and  care-worn  eyes  made 
no  secret  of  the  trouble,  whatever  it  was. 
At  the  same  moment  the  new-comer  was 
aware  of  a  faint,  indefinable  smell.  It 
seemed  like  that  of  burnt  bread,  but  dif 
ferent. 

He  glanced  curiously  about  him.  Twenty 
feet  away  a  weary-faced  sailor  was  calking 
the  deck.  As  his  eye  lingered  on  the  man, 
he  saw  suddenly  arise  from  under  his  hands 
a  faint  spiral  of  haze  that  curled  and  twisted 
and  was  gone.  By  now  he  had  reached  the 
deck.  His  bare  feet  were  pervaded  by  a  dull 
warmth  that  quickly  penetrated  the  thick 
calluses.  He  knew  now  the  nature  of  the 
ship's  distress.  His  eyes  roved  swiftly  for 
ward,  where  the  full  crew  of  weary-faced 
sailors  regarded  him  eagerly.  The  glance 
from  his  liquid  brown  eyes  swept  over  them 
like  a  benediction,  soothing  them,  wrapping 


THE  SEED   OF  McCOY  261 

them  about  as  in  the  mantle  of  a  great  peace. 
"How  long  has  she  been  afire,  Captain  ?" 
he  asked  in  a  voice  so  gentle  and  unper 
turbed  that  it  was  as  the  cooing  of  a  dove. 

At  first  the  captain  felt  the  peace  and 
content  of  it  stealing  in  upon  him ;  then 
the  consciousness  of  all  that  he  had  gone 
through  and  was  going  through  smote  him, 
and  he  was  resentful.  By  what  right  did 
this  ragged  beach-comber,  in  dungaree 
trousers  and  a  cotton  shirt,  suggest  such  a 
thing  as  peace  and  content  to  him  and  his 
overwrought,  exhausted  soul  ?  The  cap 
tain  did  not  reason  this ;  it  was  the  uncon 
scious  process  of  emotion  that  caused  his 
resentment. 

"Fifteen  days,"  he  answered  shortly. 
"Who  are  you?" 

"My  name  is  McCoy,"  came  the  answer 
in  tones  that  breathed  tenderness  and  com 
passion. 

"I  mean,  are  you  the  pilot  ?" 

McCoy  passed  the  benediction  of  his  gaze 
over  the  tall,  heavy-shouldered  man  with 


262  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

the  haggard,  unshaven  face  who  had  joined 
the  captain. 

"I  am  as  much  a  pilot  as  anybody,"  was 
McCoy's  answer.  "We  are  all  pilots  here, 
Captain,  and  I  know  every  inch  of  these 


waters." 


But  the  captain  was  impatient. 

"What  I  want  is  some  of  the  authorities. 
I  want  to  talk  with  them,  and  blame  quick." 

"Then  I'll  do  just  as  well." 

Again  that  insidious  suggestion  of  peace, 
and  his  ship  a  raging  furnace  beneath  his 
feet !  The  captain's  eyebrows  lifted  im 
patiently  and  nervously,  and  his  fist  clenched 
as  if  he  were  about  to  strike  a  blow  with  it. 

"Who  in  hell  are  you  ?"  he  demanded. 

"I  am  the  chief  magistrate,"  was  the 
reply  in  a  voice  that  was  still  the  softest 
and  gentlest  imaginable. 

The  tall,  heavy-shouldered  man  broke  out 
in  a  harsh  laugh  that  was  partly  amusement, 
but  mostly  hysterical.  Both  he  and  the  cap 
tain  regarded  McCoy  with  incredulity  and 
amazement.  That  this  barefooted  beach- 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  263 

comber  should  possess  such  high-sound 
ing  dignity  was  inconceivable.  His  cotton 
shirt,  unbuttoned,  exposed  a  grizzled  chest 
and  the  fact  that  there  was  no  undershirt 
beneath.  A  worn  straw  hat  failed  to  hide 
the  ragged  gray  hair.  Halfway  down  his 
chest  descended  an  untrimmed  patriarchal 
beard.  In  any  slop-shop,  two  shillings  would 
have  outfitted  him  complete  as  he  stood 
before  them. 

"Any  relation  to  the  McCoy  of  the 
Bounty?"  the  captain  asked. 

"He  was  my  great-grandfather." 

"Oh,"  the  captain  said,  then  bethought 
himself.  "My  name  is  Davenport,  and 
this  is  my  first  mate,  Mr.  Konig." 

They  shook  hands. 

"And  now  to  business."  The  captain 
spoke  quickly,  the  urgency  of  a  great 
haste  pressing  his  speech.  "We've  been 
on  fire  for  over  two  weeks.  She's  ready 
to  break  all  hell  loose  any  moment.  That's 
why  I  held  for  Pitcairn.  I  want  to  beach 
her,  or  scuttle  her,  and  save  the  hull." 


264  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

"Then  you  made  a  mistake,  Captain, 
said  McCoy.  "You  should  have  slacked 
away  for  Mangareva.  There's  a  beauti 
ful  beach  there,  in  a  lagoon  where  the 

'^"^w 

water  is  like  a  mill-pond." 

"But  we're  here,  ain't  we?"  the  first 
mate  demanded.  "That's  the  point. 
We're  here,  and  we've  got  to  do  some 
thing." 

McCoy  shook  his  head  kindly. 

"You  can  do  nothing  here.  There  is 
no  beach.  There  isn't  even  anchorage." 

"Gammon  !"  said  the  mate.  "Gam 
mon  !"  he  repeated  loudly,  as  the  captain 
signalled  him  to  be  more  soft-spoken. 
"You  can't  tell  me  that  sort  of  stuff. 
Where  d'ye  keep  your  own  boats,  hey  — 
your  schooner,  or  cutter,  or  whatever  you 
have  ?  Hey  ?  Answer  me  that." 

McCoy  smiled  as  gently  as  he  spoke. 
His  smile  was  a  caress,  an  embrace  that 
surrounded  the  tired  mate  and  sought  to 
draw  him  into  the  quietude  and  rest  of 
McCoy's  tranquil  soul. 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  265 

"We  have  no  schooner  or  cutter,"  he 
replied.  "And  we  carry  our  canoes  to  the 
top  of  the  cliff." 

"You've  got  to  show  me,"  snorted  the 
mate.  "How  d'ye  get  around  to  the 
other  islands,  heh  ?  Tell  me  that." 

"We  don't  get  around.  As  governor 
of  Pitcairn,  I  sometimes  go.  When  I  was 
younger,  I  was  away  a  great  deal  —  some 
times  on  the  trading  schooners,  but  mostly 
on  the  missionary  brig.  But  she's  gone 
now,  and  we  depend  on  passing  vessels. 
Sometimes  we  have  had  as  high  as  six  calls 
in  one  year.  At  other  times,  a  year,  and 
even  longer,  has  gone  by  without  one  pass 
ing  ship.  Yours  is  the  first  in  seven 
months." 

"And  you  mean  to  tell  me  — "  the  mate 
began. 

But  Captain  Davenport  interfered. 

"Enough  of  this.  We're  losing  time. 
What  is  to  be  done,  Mr.  McCoy  ?" 

The  old  man  turned  his  brown  eyes, 
sweet  as  a  woman's,  shoreward,  and  both 


266  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

captain  and  mate  followed  his  gaze  around 
from  the  lonely  rock  of  Pitcairn  to  the 
crew  clustering  forward  and  waiting  anx 
iously  for  the  announcement  of  a  decision. 
McCoy  did  not  hurry.  He  thought 
smoothly  and  slowly,  step  by  step,  with  the 
certitude  of  a  mind  that  was  never  vexed 
or  outraged  by  life. 

"The  wind  is  light  now,"  he  said  finally. 
"There  is  a  heavy  current  setting  to  the 
westward." 

"That's  what  made  us  fetch  to  leeward," 
the  captain  interrupted,  desiring  to  vin 
dicate  his  seamanship. 

"Yes,  that  is  what  fetched  you  to  lee 
ward,"  McCoy  went  on.  "Well,  you  can't 
work  up  against  this  current  to-day.  And 
if  you  did,  there  is  no  beach.  Your  ship 
will  be  a  total  loss." 

He  paused,  and  captain  and  mate  looked 
despair  at  each  other. 

"But  I  will  tell  you  what  you  can  do. 
The  breeze  will  freshen  to-night  around 
midnight  —  see  those  tails  of  clouds  and 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  267 

that  thickness  to  windward,  beyond  the 
point  there  ?  That's  where  she'll  come 
from,  out  of  the  southeast,  hard.  It  is 
three  hundred  miles  to  Mangareva. 
Square  away  for  it.  There  is  a  beautiful 
bed  for  your  ship  there." 

The  mate  shook  his  head. 

"Come  in  to  the  cabin,  and  we'll  look 
at  the  chart,"  said  the  captain. 

McCoy  found  a  stifling,  poisonous  at 
mosphere  in  the  pent  cabin.  Stray  waft- 
ures  of  invisible  gases  bit  his  eyes  and 
made  them  sting.  The  deck  was  hotter, 
almost  unbearably  hot  to  his  bare  feet. 
The  sweat  poured  out  of  his  body.  He 
looked  almost  with  apprehension  about 
him.  This  malignant,  internal  heat  was 
astounding.  It  was  a  marvel  that  the 
cabin  did  not  burst  into  flames.  He  had 
a  feeling  as  if  of  being  in  a  huge  bake-oven 
where  the  heat  might  at  any  moment  in 
crease  tremendously  and  shrivel  him  up 
like  a  blade  of  grass. 

As   he   lifted   one   foot   and   rubbed   the 


268  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

hot  sole  against  the  leg  of  his  trousers,  the 
mate  laughed  in  a  savage,  snarling  fashion. 

"The  anteroom  of  hell,"  he  said.  "Hell 
herself  is  right  down  there  under  your  feet." 

"It's  hot!"  McCoy  cried  involuntarily, 
mopping  his  face  with  a  bandana  handker 
chief. 

"Here's  Mangareva,"  the  captain  said, 
bending  over  the  table  and  pointing  to  a 
black  speck  in  the  midst  of  the  white 
blankness  of  the  chart.  "And  here,  in 
between,  is  another  island.  Why  not  run 
for  that?" 

McCoy  did  not  look  at  the  chart. 

"That's  Crescent  Island,"  he  an 
swered.  "It  is  uninhabited,  and  it  is  only 
two  or  three  feet  above  water.  Lagoon, 
but  no  entrance.  No,  Mangareva  is  the 
nearest  place  for  your  purpose."  , 

"Mangareva  it  is,  then,"  said  Captain 
Davenport,  interrupting  the  mate's  growl 
ing  objection.  "Call  the  crew  aft,  Mr. 
Konig." 

The    sailors    obeyed,    shuffling    wearily 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  269 

along  the  deck  and  painfully  endeavoring 
to  make  haste.  Exhaustion  was  evident 
in  every  movement.  The  cook  came  out 
of  his  galley  to  hear,  and  the  cabin-boy 
hung  about  near  him. 

When  Captain  Davenport  had  explained 
the  situation  and  announced  his  intention 
of  running  for  Mangareva,  an  uproar  broke 
out.  Against  a  background  of  throaty 
rumbling  arose  inarticulate  cries  of  rage, 
with  here  and  there  a  distinct  curse,  or 
word,  or  phrase.  A  shrill  Cockney  voice 
soared  and  dominated  for  a  moment,  cry 
ing  :  "Gawd  !  After  bein'  in  'ell  for  fifteen 
days  —  an'  now  'e  wants  us  to  sail  this 
floatin'  'ell  to  sea  again  !" 

The  captain  could  not  control  them, 
but  McCoy's  gentle  presence  seemed  to 
rebuke  and  calm  them,  and  the  muttering 
and  cursing  died  away,  until  the  full  crew, 
save  here  and  there  an  anxious  face  directed 
at  the  captain,  yearned  dumbly  toward 
the  green-clad  peaks  and  beetling  coast 
of  Pitcairn. 


270  THE  SEED   OF  McCOY 

Soft  as  a  spring  zephyr  was  the  voice  of 
McCoy : 

"Captain,  I  thought  I  heard  some  of 
them  say  they  were  starving." 

"Ay,"  was  the  answer,  "and  so  we  are. 
I've  had  a  seaibiscuit  and  a  spoonful  of 
salmon  in  the  last  two  days.  We're  on 
whack.  You  see,  when  we  discovered  the 
fire,  we  battened  down  immediately  to 
suffocate  the  fire.  And  then  we  found 
how  little  food  there  was  in  the  pantry. 
But  it  was  too  late.  We  didn't  dare  break 
out  the  lazarette.  Hungry  ?  I'm  just  as 
hungry  as  they  are." 

He  spoke  to  the  men  again,  and  again 
the  throat-rumbling  and  cursing  arose, 
their  faces  convulsed  and  animal-like  with 
rage.  The  second  and  third  mates  had 
joined  the  captain,  standing  behind  him 
at  the  break  of  the  poop.  Their  faces 
were  set  and  expressionless ;  they  seemed 
bored,  more  than  anything  else,  by  this 
mutiny  of  the  crew.  Captain  Davenport 
glanced  questioningly  at  his  first  mate, 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  271 

and  that  person  merely  shrugged  his 
shoulders  in  token  of  his  helplessness. 

"You  see,"  the  captain  said  to  McCoy, 
"you  can't  compel  sailors  to  leave  the  safe 
land  and  go  to  sea  on  a  burning  vessel. 
She  has  been  their  floating  coffin  for  over 
two  weeks  now.  They  are  worked  out, 
and  starved  out,  and  they've  got  enough 
of  her.  We'll  beat  up  for  Pitcairn." 

But  the  wind  was  light,  the  Pyrenees' 
bottom  was  foul,  and  she  could  not  beat 
up  against  the  strong  westerly  current. 
At  the  end  of  two  hours  she  had  lost  three 
miles.  The  sailors  worked  eagerly,  as  if 
by  main  strength  they  could  compel  the 
Pyrenees  against  the  adverse  elements. 
But  steadily,  port  tack  and  starboard  tack, 
she  sagged  off  to  the  westward.  The  cap 
tain  paced  restlessly  up  and  down,  pausing 
occasionally  to  survey  the  vagrant  smoke- 
wisps  and  to  trace  them  back  to  the  por 
tions  of  the  deck  from  which  they  sprang. 
The  carpenter  was  engaged  constantly  in 
attempting  to  locate  such  places,  and, 


272  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

when  he  succeeded,  in  calking  them  tighter 
and  tighter. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think?"  the  cap 
tain  finally  asked  McCoy,  who  was  watch 
ing  the  carpenter  with  all  a  child's  interest 
and  curiosity  in  his  eyes. 

McCoy  looked  shoreward,  where  the  land 
was  disappearing  in  the  thickening  haze. 

"I  think  it  would  be  better  to  square 
away  for  Mangareva.  With  that  breeze 
that  is  coming,  you'll  be  there  to-morrow 
evening." 

"But  what  if  the  fire  breaks  out  ?  It  is 
liable  to  do  it  any  moment." 

"Have  your  boats  ready  in  the  falls. 
The  same  breeze  will  carry  your  boats  to 
Mangareva  if  the  ship  burns  out  from 
under." 

Captain  Davenport  debated  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  then  McCoy  heard  the  ques 
tion  he  had  not  wanted  to  hear,  but  which 
he  knew  was  surely  coming. 

"I  have  no  chart  of  Mangareva.  On 
the  general  chart  it  is  only  a  fly-speck.  I 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  273 

would  not  know  where  to  look  for  the 
entrance  into  the  lagoon.  Will  you  come 
along  and  pilot  her  in  for  me  ?" 

McCoy's  serenity  was  unbroken. 

:<Yes,  Captain,"  he  said,  with  the  same 
quiet  unconcern  with  which  he  would  have 
accepted  an  invitation  to  dinner;  "I'll 
go  with  you  to  Mangareva." 

Again  the  crew  was  called  aft,  and  the 
captain  spoke  to  them  from  the  break  of 
the  poop. 

"We've  tried  to  work  her  up,  but  you 
see  how  we've  lost  ground.  She's  set 
ting  off  in  a  two-knot  current.  This  gen 
tleman  is  the  Honorable  McCoy,  Chief 
Magistrate  and  Governor  of  Pitcairn  Is 
land.  He  will  come  along  with  us  to 
Mangareva.  So  you  see  the  situation  is 
not  so  dangerous.  He  would  not  make 
such  an  offer  if  he  thought  he  was  going 
to  lose  his  life.  Besides,  whatever  risk 
there  is,  if  he  of  his  own  free  will  come 
on  board  and  take  it,  we  can  do  no  less. 
What  do  you  say  for  Mangareva  ?" 


274  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

This  time  there  was  no  uproar.  Mc 
Coy's  presence,  the  surety  and  calm  that 
seemed  to  radiate  from  him,  had  had  its 
effect.  They  conferred  with  one  another 
in  low  voices.  There  was  little  urging. 
They  were  virtually  unanimous,  and  they 
shoved  the  Cockney  out  as  their  spokes 
man.  That  worthy  was  overwhelmed  with 
consciousness  of  the  heroism  of  himself 
and  his  mates,  and  with  flashing  eyes  he 
cried : 

"By  Gawd  !  if  'e  will,  we  will !" 

The  crew  mumbled  its  assent  and  started 
forward. 

"One  moment,  Captain,"  McCoy  said, 
as  the  other  was  turning  to  give  orders  to 
the  mate.  "I  must  go  ashore  first." 

Mr.  Konig  was  thunderstruck,  staring 
at  McCoy  as  if  he  were  a  madman. 

"Go  ashore!"  the  captain  cried. 
"What  for?  It  will  take  you  three  hours 
to  get  there  in  your  canoe." 

McCoy  measured  the  distance  of  the 
land  away,  and  nodded. 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  275 

"Yes,  it  is  six  now.  I  won't  get  ashore 
till  nine.  The  people  cannot  be  assem 
bled  earlier  then  ten.  As  the  breeze  fresh 
ens  up  to-night,  you  can  begin  to  work  up 
against  it,  and  pick  me  up  at  daylight  to 
morrow  morning." 

"In  the  name  of  reason  and  common- 
sense,"  the  captain  burst  forth,  "what  do 
you  want  to  assemble  the  people  for  ? 
Don't  you  realize  that  my  ship  is  burning 
beneath  me  ?" 

McCoy  was  as  placid  as  a  summer  sea, 
and  the  other's  anger  produced  not  the 
slightest  ripple  upon  it. 

''Yes,  Captain,"  he  cooed  in  his  dove- 
like  voice,  "I  do  realize  that  your  ship  is 
burning.  That  is  why  I  am  going  with 
you  to  Mangareva.  But  I  must  get  per 
mission  to  go  with  you.  It  is  our  custom. 
It  is  an  important  matter  when  the  gov 
ernor  leaves  the  island.  The  people's  in 
terests  are  at  stake,  and  so  they  have  the 
right  to  vote  their  permission  or  refusal. 
But  they  will  give  it,  I  know  that." 


276  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

"Are  you  sure  ?" 

"Quite  sure." 

"Then  if  you  know  they  will  give  it, 
why  bother  with  getting  it  ?  Think  of 
the  delay  —  a  whole  night." 

"It  is  our  custom,"  was  the  imperturb 
able  reply.  "Also,  I  am  the  governor, 
and  I  must  make  arrangements  for  the 
conduct  of  the  island  during  my  absence." 

"But  it  is  only  a  twenty-four-hour  run 
to  Mangareva,"  the  captain  objected. 
"Suppose  it  took  you  six  times  that  long 
to  return  to  windward ;  that  would  bring 
you  back  by  the  end  of  a  week." 

McCoy  smiled  his  large,  benevolent 
smile. 

"Very  few  vessels  come  to  Pitcairn, 
and  when  they  do,  they  are  usually  from 
San  Francisco  or  from  around  the  Horn. 
I  shall  be  fortunate  if  I  get  back  in  six 
months.  I  may  be  away  a  year,  and  I 
may  have  to  go  to  San  Francisco  in  order 
to  find  a  vessel  that  will  bring  me  back. 
My  father  once  left  Pitcairn  to  be  gone 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  277 

three  months,  and  two  years  passed  before 
he  could  get  back.  Then,  too,  you  are 
short  of  food.  If  you  have  to  take  to  the 
boats,  and  the  weather  comes  up  bad, 
you  may  be  days  in  reaching  land.  I  can 
bring  off  two  canoe  loads  of  food  in  the 
morning.  Dried  bananas  will  be  best.  As 
the  breeze  freshens,  you  beat  up  against 
it.  The  nearer  you  are,  the  bigger  loads 
I  "can  bring  off.  Good-by." 

He  held  out  his  hand.  The  captain 
shook  it,  and  was  reluctant  to  let  go.  He 
seemed  to  cling  to  it  as  a  drowning  sailor 
clings  to  a  life-buoy. 

"How  do  I  know  you  will  come  back 
in  the  morning?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  that's  it !"  cried  the  mate.  "How 
do  we  know  but  what  he's  skinning  out  to 
save  his  own  hide  ?" 

McCoy  did  not  speak.  He  looked  at 
them  sweetly  and  benignantly,  and  it 
seemed  to  them  that  they  received  a  mes 
sage  from  his  tremendous  certitude  of 
soul. 


278  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

The  captain  released  his  hand,  and, 
with  a  last  sweeping  glance  that  embraced 
the  crew  in  its  benediction,  McCoy  went 
over  the  rail  and  descended  into  his  canoe. 

The  wind  freshened,  and  the  Pyrenees, 
despite  the  foulness  of  her  bottom,  won 
half  a  dozen  miles  away  from  the  westerly 
current.  At  daylight,  with  Pitcairn  three 
miles  to  windward,  Captain  Davenport 
made  out  two  canoes  coming  off  to  him. 
Again  McCoy  clambered  up  the  side  and 
dropped  over  the  rail  to  the  hot  deck.  He 
was  followed  by  many  packages  of  dried 
bananas,  each  package  wrapped  in  dry  leaves. 

"Now,  Captain,"  he  said,  "swing  the 
yards  and  drive  for  dear  life.  You  see, 
I  am  no  navigator,"  he  explained  a  few 
minutes  later,  as  he  stood  by  the  captain 
aft,  the  latter  with  gaze  wandering  from 
aloft  to  overside  as  he  estimated  the  Pyr 
enees'  speed.  "You  must  fetch  her  to 
Mangareva.  When  you  have  picked  up 
the  land,  then  I  will  pilot  her  in.  What 
do  you  think  she  is  making?" 


THE  SEED   OF  McCOY  279 

"Eleven,"  Captain  Davenport  answered, 
with  a  final  glance  at  the  water  rushing  past. 

"Eleven.  Let  me  see,  if  she  keeps  up 
that  gait,  we'll  sight  Mangareva  between 
eight  and  nine  o'clock  to-morrow  morn 
ing.  I'll  have  her  on  the  beach  by  ten, 
or  by  eleven  at  latest.  And  then  your 
troubles  will  be  all  over." 

It  almost  seemed  to  the  captain  that  the 
blissful  moment  had  already  arrived,  such 
was  the  persuasive  convincingness  of  Mc 
Coy.  Captain  Davenport  had  been  under 
the  fearful  strain  of  navigating  his  burn 
ing  ship  for  over  two  weeks,  and  he  was 
beginning  to  feel  that  he  had  had  enough. 

A  heavier  flaw  of  wind  struck  the  back 
of  his  neck  and  whistled  by  his  ears.  He 
measured  the  weight  of  it,  and  looked 
quickly  overside. 

"The  wind  is  making  all  the  time,"  he 
announced.  "The  old  girl's  doing  nearer 
twelve  than  eleven  right  now.  If  this 
keeps  up,  we'll  be  shortening  down  to 
night." 


280  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

All  day  the  Pyrenees,  carrying  her  load 
of  living  fire,  tore  across  the  foaming  sea. 
By  nightfall,  royals  and  topgallant|5ails 
were  in,  and  she  flew  on  into  the  darkness, 
with  great,  crested  seas  roaring  after  her. 
The  auspicious  wind  had  had  its  effect, 
and  fore  and  aft  a  visible  brightening  was 
apparent.  In  the  second  dog-watch  some 
careless  soul  started  a  song,  and  by  eight 
bells  the  whole  crew  was  singing. 

Captain  Davenport  had  his  blankets 
brought  up  and  spread  on  top  the  house. 

"I've  forgotten  what  sleep  is,"  he  ex 
plained  to  McCoy.  "I'm  all  in.  But 
give  me  a  call  at  any  time  you  think  neces 
sary." 

At  three  in  the  morning  he  was  aroused 
by  a  gentle  tugging  at  his  arm.  He  sat  up 
quickly,  bracing  himself  against  the  sky 
light,  stupid  yet  from  his  heavy  sleep. 
The  wind  was  thrumming  its  war-song  in 
the  rigging,  and  a  wild  sea  was  buffeting 
the  Pyrenees.  Amidships  she  was  wallow 
ing  first  one  rail  under  and  then  the  other, 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  281 

flooding  the  waist  more  often  than  not. 
McCoy  was  shouting  something  he  could 
not  hear.  He  reached  out,  clutched  the 
other  by  the  shoulder,  and  drew  him  close 
so  that  his  own  ear  was  close  to  the  other's 
lips. 

"It's  three  o'clock,"  came  McCoy's 
voice,  still  retaining  its  dovelike  quality, 
but  curiously  muffled,  as  if  from  a  long 
way  off.  "We've  run  two  hundred  and 
fifty.  Crescent  Island  is  only  thirty  miles 
away,  somewhere  there  dead  ahead. 
There's  no  lights  on  it.  If  we  keep  run 
ning,  we'll  pile  up,  and  lose  ourselves  as 
well  as  the  ship." 

"What  d'  ye  think  —  heave  to  ?" 

"Yes;  heave  to  till  daylight.  It  will 
only  put  us  back  four  hours." 

So  the  Pyrenees,  with  her  cargo  of  fire, 
was  hove  to,  bitting  the  teeth  of  the  gale 
and  fighting  and  smashing  the  pounding 
seas.  She  was  a  shell,  filled  with  a  con 
flagration,  and  on  the  outside  of  the  shell, 
clinging  precariously,  the  little  motes  of 


282  THE  SEED   OF  McCOY 

men,  by  pull  and  haul,  helped  her  in  the 
battle. 

"It  is  most  unusual,  this  gale,"  McCoy 
told  the  captain,  in  the  lee  of  the  cabin. 
"By  rights  there  should  be  no  gale  at  this 
time  of  the  year.  But  everything  about 
the  weather  has  been  unusual.  There  has 
been  a  stoppage  of  the  trades,  and  now 
it's  howling  right  out  of  the  trade  quar 
ter."  He  waved  his  hand  into  the  dark 
ness,  as  if  his  vision  could  dimly  penetrate 
for  hundreds  of  miles.  "It  is  off  to  the 
westward.  There  is  something  big  mak 
ing  off  there  somewhere  —  a  hurricane  or 
something.  We're  lucky  to  be  so  far  to 
the  eastward.  But  this  is  only  a  little 
blow,"  he  added.  "It  can't  last.  I  can 
tell  you  that  much." 

By  daylight  the  gale  had  eased  down  to 
normal.  But  daylight  revealed  a  new 
danger.  It  had  come  on  thick.  The  sea 
was  covered  by  a  fog,  or,  rather,  by  a 
pearly  mist  that  was  fog-like  in  density, 
in  so  far  as  it  obstructed  vision,  but  that 


THE   SEED   OF   McCOY  283 

was  no  more  than  a  film  on  the  sea,  for  the 
sun  shot  it  through  and  filled  it  with  a 
glowing  radiance. 

The  deck  of  the  Pyrenees  was  making 
more  smoke  than  on  the  preceding  day, 
and  the  cheerfulness  of  officers  and  crew 
had  vanished.  In  the  lee  of  the  galley  the 
cabin-boy  could  be  heard  whimpering.  It 
was  his  first  voyage,  and  the  fear  of  death 
was  at  his  heart.  The  captain  wandered 
about  like  a  lost  soul,  nervously  chewing 
his  mustache,  scowling,  unable  to  make 
up  his  mind  what  to  do. 

"What  do  you  think  ?"  he  asked,  paus 
ing  by  the  side  of  McCoy,  who  was  making 
a  breakfast  off  fried  bananas  and  a  mug  of 
water. 

McCoy  finished  the  last  banana,  drained 
the  mug,  and  looked  slowly  around.  In 
his  eyes  was  a  smile  of  tenderness  as  he 
said : 

"Well,  Captain,  we  might  as  well  drive 
as  burn.  Your  decks  are  not  going  to 
hold  out  forever.  They  are  hotter  this 


284  THE   SEED   OF   McCOY 

morning.  You  haven't  a  pair  of  shoes  I 
can  wear  ?  It  is  getting  uncomfortable 
for  my  bare  feet." 

The  Pyrenees  shipped  two  heavy  seas 
as  she  was  swung  off  and  put  once  more 
before  it,  and  the  first  mate  expressed  a 
desire  to  have  all  that  water  down  in  the 
hold,  if  only  it  could  be  introduced  with 
out  taking  off  the  hatches.  McCoy  ducked 
his  head  into  the  binnacle  and  watched  the 
course  set. 

"I'd  hold  her  up  some  more,  Captain," 
he  said.  "She's  been  making  drift  when 
hove  to." 

"I've  set  it  to  a  point  higher  already," 
was  the  answer.  "Isn't  that  enough  ?" 

"I'd  make  it  two  points,  Captain.  This 
bit  of  a  blow  kicked  that  westerly  current 
ahead  faster  than  you  imagine." 

Captain  Davenport  compromised  on  a 
point  and  a  half,  and  then  went  aloft,  ac 
companied  by  McCoy  and  the  first  mate, 
to  keep  a  lookout  for  land.  Sail  had  been 
made,  so  that  the  Pyrenees  was  doing  ten 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  285 

knots.  The  following  sea  was  dying  down 
rapidly.  There  was  no  break  in  the  pearly 
fog,  and  by  ten  o'clock  Captain  Daven 
port  was  growing  nervous.  All  hands  were 
at  their  stations,  ready,  at  the  first  warning 
of  land  ahead,  to  spring  like  fiends  to  the 
task  of  bringing  the  Pyrenees  up  on  the 
wind.  That  land  ahead,  a  surf-washed 
outer  reef,  would  be  perilously  close  when 
it  revealed  itself  in  such  a  fog. 

Another  hour  passed.  The  three 
watchers  aloft  stared  intently  into  the 
pearly  radiance. 

"What  if  we  miss  Mangareva  ?"  Cap 
tain  Davenport  asked  abruptly. 

McCoy,  without  shifting  his  gaze,  an 
swered  softly : 

"Why,  let  her  drive,  Captain.  That  is 
all  we  can  do.  All  the  Paumotus  are  be 
fore  us.  We  can  drive  for  a  thousand 
miles  through  reefs  and  atolls.  We  are 
bound  to  fetch  up  somewhere." 

"Then  drive  it  is."  Captain  Daven 
port  evidenced  his  intention  of  descending 


286  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

to  the  deck.  "We've  missed  Mangareva. 
God  knows  where  the  next  land  is.  I 
wish  I'd  held  her  up  that  other  half*point," 
he  confessed  a  moment  later.  "This 
cursed  current  plays  the  devil  with  a  navi 
gator." 

"The  old  navigators  called  the  Paumo- 
tus  the  Dangerous  Archipelago,"  McCoy 
said,  when  they  had  regained  the  poop. 
"This  very  current  was  partly  responsible 
for  that  name." 

'"I  was  talking  with  a  sailor  chap  in 
Sydney,  once,"  said  Mr.  Konig.  "He'd 
been  trading  in  the  Paumotus.  He  told 
me  insurance  was  eighteen  per  cent.  Is 
that  right  ?" 

McCoy  smiled  and  nodded. 

"Except  that  they  don't  insure,"  he 
explained.  "The  owners  write  off  twenty 
per  cent  of  the  cost  of  their  schooners  each 
year." 

"My  God!"  Captain  Davenport 
groaned.  "That  makes  the  life  of  a 
schooner  only  five  years  !"  He  shook  his 


THE   SEED  OF  McCOY  287 

head  sadly,  murmuring,  "Bad  waters  !  bad 
waters  !" 

Again  they  went  into  the  cabin  to  con 
sult  the  big  general  chart ;  but  the  poi 
sonous  vapors  drove  them  coughing  and 
gasping  on  deck. 

"Here  is  Moerenhout  Island."  Captain 
Davenport  pointed  it  out  on  the  chart, 
which  he  had  spread  on  the  house.  "  It  can't 
be  more  than  a  hundred  miles  to  leeward." 

"A  hundred  and  ten."  McCoy  shook 
his  head  doubtfully.  "It  might  be  done, 
but  it  is  very  difficult.  I  might  beach  her, 
and  then  again  I  might  put  her  on  the 
reef.  A  bad  place,  a  very  bad  place." 

"We'll  take  the  chance,"  was  Captain 
Davenport's  decision,  as  he  set  about 
working  out  the  course. 

Sail  was  shortened  early  in  the  after 
noon,  to  avoid  running  past  in  the  night ; 
and  in  the  second  dog-watch  the  crew 
manifested  its  regained  cheerfulness.  Land 
was  so  very  near,  and  their  troubles  would 
be  over  in  the  morning. 


288  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

But  morning  broke  clear,  with  a  blaz 
ing  tropic  sun.  The  southeast  trade  had 
swung  around  to  the  eastward,  and  was 
driving  the  Pyrenees  through  the  water  at 
an  eight-knot  clip.  Captain  Davenport 
worked  up  his  dead  reckoning,  allowing 
generously  for  drift,  and  announced 
Moerenhout  Island  to  be  not  more  than 
ten  miles  off.  The  Pyrenees  sailed  the 
ten  miles ;  she  sailed  ten  miles  more ;  and 
the  lookouts  at  the  three  mastheads  saw 
naught  but  the  naked,  sun-washed  sea./ 

"But  the  land  is  there,  I  tell  you,"  Captain 
Davenport  shouted  to  them  from  the  poop. 

McCoy  smiled  soothingly,  but  the  cap 
tain  glared  about  him  like  a  madman, 
fetched  his  sextant,  and  took  a  chronom 
eter  sight. 

"I  knew  I  was  right,"  he  almost  shouted, 
when  he  had  worked  up  the  observation. 
"Twenty-one,  fifty-five,  south;  one-thirty- 
six,  two,  west.  There  you  are.  We're 
eight  miles  to  windward  yet.  What  did 
you  make  it  out,  Mr.  Konig  ?" 


THE   SEED   OF   McCOY  289 

The  first  mate  glanced  at  his  own  fig 
ures,  and  said  in  a  low  voice : 

"Twenty-one,  fifty-five  all  right;  but 
my  longitude's  one-thirty-six,  forty-eight. 
That  puts  us  considerably  to  leeward — " 

But  Captain  Davenport  ignored  his  fig 
ures  with  so  contemptuous  a  silence  as  to 
make  Mr.  Konig  grit  his  teeth  and  curse 
savagely  under  his  breath. 

"Keep  her  off,"  the  captain  ordered  the 
man  at  the  wheel.  "Three  points  — 
steady  there,  as  she  goes  !" 

Then  he  returned  to  his  figures  and 
worked  them  over.  The  sweat  poured 
from  his  face.  He  chewed  his  mustache, 
his  lips,  and  his  pencil,  staring  at  the  fig 
ures  as  a  man  might  at  a  ghost.  Sud 
denly,  with  a  fierce,  muscular  outburst,  he 
crumpled  the  scribbled  paper  in  his  fist 
and  crushed  it  under  foot.  Mr.  Konig 
grinned  vindictively  and  turned  away, 
while  Captain  Davenport  leaned  against 
the  cabin  and  for  half  an  hour  spoke  no 
word,  contenting  himself  with  gazing  to 


290  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

leeward  with  an  expression  of  musing  hope 
lessness  on  his  face. 

"Mr.  McCoy,"  he  broke  silence 
abruptly.  "The  chart  indicates  a  group 
of  islands,  but  not  how  many,  off  there  to 
the  north'ard,  or  nor'-nor'westward,  about 
forty  miles  —  the  Acteon  Islands.  What 
about  them  ?" 

"There  are  four,  all  low,"  McCoy  an 
swered.  "First  to  the  southeast  is  Ma- 
tuerui  —  no  people,  no  entrance  to  the 
lagoon.  Then  comes  Tenarunga.  There 
used  to  be  about  a  dozen  people  there,  but 
they  may  be  all  gone  now.  Anyway,  there 
is  no  entrance  for  a  ship  —  only  a  boat  en 
trance,  with  a  fathom  of  water.  Vehauga 
and  Teua-raro  are  the  other  two.  No  en 
trances,  no  people,  very  low.  There  is  no 
bed  for  the  Pyrenees  in  that  group.  She 
would  be  a  total  wreck." 

"Listen  to  that!"  Captain  Davenport 
was  frantic.  "No  people  !  No  entrances  ! 
What  in  the  devil  are  islands  good  for  ? 

"Well,  then,"  he  barked  suddenly,  like 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  291 

an  excited  terrier,  "the  chart  gives  a  whole 
mess  of  islands  off  to  the  nor'west.  What 
about  them  ?  What  one  has  an  entrance 
where  I  can  lay  my  ship  ?" 
/McCoy  calmly  considered.  He  did  not 
refer  to  the  chart.  All  these  islands,  reefs, 
shoals,  lagoons,  entrances,  and  distances 
were  marked  on  the  chart  of  his  memory. 
He  knew  them  as  the  city  dweller  knows 
his  buildings,  streets,  and  alleys. 

"Papakena  and  Vanavana  are  off  there 
to  the  westward,  or  west-nor'westward  a 
hundred  miles  and  a  bit  more,"  he  said. 
"One  is  uninhabited,  and  I  heard  that  the 
people  on  the  other  had  gone  'off  to  Cad 
mus  Island.  Anyway,  neither  lagoon  has 
an  entrance.  Ahunui  is  another  hundred 
miles  on  to  the  nor'west.  No  entrance,  no 
people." 

"Well,  forty  miles  beyond  them  are  two 
islands  ?"  Captain  Davenport  queried, 
raising  his  head  from  the  chart. 

McCoy  shook  his  head. 

"Paros  and  Manuhungi  —  no  entrances, 


292  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

no  people.  Nengo-Nengo  is  forty  miles 
beyond  them,  in  turn,  and  it  has  no  people 
and  no  entrance.  But  there  is  Hao  Is 
land.  It  is  just  the  place.  The  lagoon  is 
thirty  miles  long  and  five  miles  wide. 
There  are  plenty  of  people.  You  can  usu 
ally  find  water.  And  any  ship  in  the 
world  can  go  through  the  entrance." 

He  ceased  and  gazed  solicitously  at 
Captain  Davenport,  who,  bending  over 
the  chart  with  a  pair  of  dividers  in  hand, 
had  just  emitted  a  low  groan. 

"  Is  there  any  lagoon  with  an  entrance  any 
where  nearer  than  Hao  Island  ?"  he  asked. 

"No,  Captain;   that  is  the  nearest." 

"Well,  it's  three  hundred  and  forty 
miles."  Captain  Davenport  was  speaking 
very  slowly,  with  decision.  "I  won't  risk 
the  responsibility  of  all  these  lives.  I'll 
wreck  her  on  the  Acteons.  And  she's  a 
good  ship,  too,"  he  added  regretfully, 
after  altering  the  course,  this  time  making 
more  allowance  than  ever  for  the  westerly 
current. 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  293 

An  hour  later  the  sky  was  overcast. 
The  southeast  trade  still  held,  but  the 
ocean  was  a  checkerboard  of  squalls. 

"  We'll  be  there  by  one  o'clock,"  Cap 
tain  Davenport  announced  confidently. 
"By  two  o'clock  at  the  outside.  McCoy, 
you  put  her  ashore  on  the  one  where  the 
people  are." 

The  sun  did  not  appear  again,  nor,  at 
one  o'clock,  was  any  land  to  be  seen. 
Captain  Davenport  looked  astern  at  the 
Pyrenees'  canting  wake. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  cried.  "An  easterly 
current !  Look  at  that ! " 

Mr.  Konig  was  incredulous.  McCoy 
was  noncommittal,  though  he  said  that  in 
the  Paumotus  there  was  no  reason  why 
it  should  not  be  an  easterly  current.  A 
few  minutes  later  a  squall  robbed  the 
Pyrenees  temporarily  of  all  her  wind,  and 
she  was  left  rolling  heavily  in  the  trough. 

"Where's  that  deep  lead  ?  Over  with 
it,  you  there!"  Captain  Davenport  held 
the  leadline  and  watched  it  sag  off  to  the 


294  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

northeast.  "  There,  look  at  that !  Take 
hold  of  it  for  yourself." 

McCoy  and  the  mate  tried  it,  and 
felt  the  line  thrumming  and  vibrating  sav 
agely  to  the  grip  of  the  tidal  stream. 

"A  four-knot  current,"  said  Mr.  Konig. 

"An  easterly  current  instead  of  a  west 
erly,"  said  Captain  Davenport,  glaring 
accusingly  at  McCoy,  as  if  to  cast  the 
blame  for  it  upon  him. 

"That  is  one  of  the  reasons,  Captain, 
for  insurance  being  eighteen  per  cent  in 
these  waters,"  McCoy  answered  cheerfully. 
"You  never  can  tell.  The  currents  are 
always  changing.  There  was  a  man  who 
wrote  books,  I  forget  his  name,  in  the 
yacht  Casco.  He  missed  Takaroa  by  thirty 
miles  and  fetched  Tikei,  all  because  of  the 
shifting  currents.  You  are  up  to  wind 
ward  now,  and  you'd  better  keep  off  a 
few  points." 

"But  how  much  has  this  current  set  me  ?" 
the  captain  demanded  irately.  "How  am 
I  to  know  how  much  to  keep  off  ?" 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  295 

"I  don't  know,  Captain,"  McCoy  said 
with  great  gentleness. 

The  wind  returned,  and  the  Pyrenees, 
her  deck  smoking  and  shimmering  in  the 
bright  gray  light,  ran  off  dead  to  leeward. 
Then  she  worked  back,  port  tack  and 
starboard  tack,  crisscrossing  her  track, 
combing  the  sea  for  the  Acteon  Islands, 
which  the  masthead  lookouts  failed  to 
sight. 

Captain  Davenport  was  beside  himself. 
His  rage  took  the  form  of  sullen  silence, 
and  he  spent  the  afternoon  in  pacing  the 
poop  or  leaning  against  the  weather- 
shrouds.  At  nightfall,  without  even  con 
sulting  McCoy,  he  squared  away  and 
headed  into  the  northwest.  Mr.  Konig, 
surreptitiously  consulting  chart  and  bin 
nacle,  and  McCoy,  openly  and  innocently 
consulting  the  binnacle,  knew  that  they 
were  running  for  Hao  Island.  By  mid 
night  the  squalls  ceased,  and  the  stars 
came  out.  Captain  Davenport  was  cheered 
by  the  promise  of  a  clear  day. 


296  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

"I'll  get  an  observation  in  the  morn 
ing,"  he  told  McCoy,  "though  what  my 
latitude  is,  is  a  puzzler.  But  I'll  use  the 
Sumner  method,  and  settle  that.  Do  you 
know  the  Sumner  line  ?" 

And  thereupon  he  explained  it  in  detail 
to  McCoy. 

The  day  proved  clear,  the  trade  blew 
steadily  out  of  the  east,  and  the  Pyrenees 
just  as  steadily  logged  her  nine  knots. 
Both  the  captain  and  mate  worked  out  the 
position  on  a  Sumner  line,  and  agreed,  and 
at  noon  agreed  again,  and  verified  the 
morning  sights  by  the  noon  sights. 

"Another  twenty-four  hours  and  we'll 
be  there,"  Captain  Davenport  assured 
McCoy.  "It's  a  miracle  the  way  the  old 
girl's  decks  hold  out.  But  they  can't  last. 
They  can't  last.  Look  at  them  smoke, 
more  and  more  every  day.  Yet  it  was  a 
tight  deck  to  begin  with,  fresh-calked  in 
'Frisco.  I  was  surprised  when  the  fire 
first  broke  out  and  we  battened  down. 
Look  at  that !" 


THE   SEED  OF  McCOY  297 

He  broke  off  to  gaze  with  dropped  jaw 
at  a  spiral  of  smoke  that  coiled  and 
twisted  in  the  lee  of  the  mizzenmast 
twenty  feet  above  the  deck. 

"Now,  how  did  that  get  there?"  he 
demanded  indignantly. 

Beneath  it  there  was  no  smoke. 
Crawling  up  from  the  deck,  sheltered 
from  the  wind  by  the  mast,  by  some  freak 
it  took  form  and  visibility  at  that  height. 
It  writhed  away  from  the  mast,  and  for  a 
moment  overhung  the  captain  like  some 
threatening  portent.  The  next  moment 
the  wind  whisked  it  away,  and  the  cap 
tain's  jaw  returned  to  place. 

"As  I  was  saying,  when  we  first  bat 
tened  down,  I  was  surprised.  It  was  a 
tight  deck,  yet  it  leaked  smoke  like  a 
sieve.  And  we've  calked  and  calked  ever 
since.  There  must  be  tremendous  pres 
sure  underneath  to  drive  so  much  smoke 
through."  -I 

That  afternoon  the  sky  became  overcast 
again,  and  squally,  drizzly  weather  set  in. 


298  THE   SEED  OF  McCOY 

The  wind  shifted  back  and  forth  between 
southeast  and  northeast,  and  at  midnight 
the  Pyrenees  was  caught  aback  by  a  sharp 
squall  from  the  southwest,  from  which 
point  the  wind  continued  to  blow  inter 
mittently. 

"We  won't  make  Hao  until  ten  or 
eleven,"  Captain  Davenport  complained 
at  seven  in  the  morning,  when  the  fleet 
ing  promise  of  the  sun  had  been  erased  by 
hazy  cloud  masses  in  the  eastern  sky. 
And  the  next  moment  he  was  plaintively 
demanding,  "And  what  are  the  currents 
doing?" 

Lookouts  at  the  mastheads  could  report 
no  land,  and  the  day  passed  in  drizzling 
calms  and  violent  squalls.  By  nightfall 
a  heavy  sea  began  to  make  from  the  west. 
The  barometer  had  fallen  to  29.50. 
There  was  no  wind,  and  still  the  ominous 
sea  continued  to  increase.  Soon  the  Pyr 
enees  was  rolling  madly  in  the  huge  waves 
that  marched  in  an  unending  procession 
from  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  west.  Sail 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  299 

was  shortened  as  fast  as  both  watches 
could  work,  and,  when  the  tired  crew  had 
finished,  its  grumbling  and  complaining 
voices,  peculiarly  animal-like  and  menac 
ing,  could  be  heard  in  the  darkness^  Once 
the  starboard  watch  was  called  aft  to  lash 
down  and  make  secure,  and  the  men 
openly  advertised  their  sullenness  and  un 
willingness.  Every  slow  movement  was  a 
protest  and  a  threat.  (The  atmosphere 
was  moist  and  sticky  like  mucilage,  and  in 
the  absence  of  wind  all  hands  seemed  to 
pant  and  gasp  for  air.  The  sweat  stood 
out  on  faces  and  bare  arms,  and  Captain 
Davenport  for  one,  his  face  more  gaunt  i 
and  care-worn  than  ever,  and  his  eyes 
troubled  and  staring,  was  oppressed  by  a 
feeling  of  impending  calamity. 

"It's  off  to  the  westward,"  McCoy  said 
encouragingly.  "At  worst,  we'll  be  only 
on  the  edge  of  it." 

But  Captain  Davenport  refused  to  be 
comforted,  and  by  the  light  of  a  lantern 
read  up  the  chapter  in  his  Epitome  that 


300  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

related  to  the  strategy  of  shipmasters  in 
cyclonic  storms.  From  somewhere  amid 
ships  the  silence  was  broken  by  a  low 
whimpering  from  the  cabin-Tboy. 

"Oh,  shut  up!"  Captain  Davenport 
yelled  suddenly  and  with  such  force  as 
to  startle  every  man  on  board  and  to 
frighten  the  offender  into  a  wild  wail  of  terror. 

"Mr.  Konig,"  the  captain  said  in  a 
voice  that  trembled  with  rage  and  nerves, 
"will  you  kindly  step  for'ard  and  stop  that 
brat's  mouth  with  a  deck  mop  ?" 

But  it  was  McCoy  who  went  forward, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  had  the  boy  com 
forted  and  asleep. 

Shortly  before  daybreak  the  first  breath 
of  air  began  to  move  from  out  the  south 
east,  increasing  swiftly  to  a  stiff  and  stiffer 
breeze.  All  hands  were  on  deck  waiting 
for  what  might  be  behind  it. 

"We're  all  right  now,  Captain,"  said 
McCoy,  standing  close  to  his  shoulder. 
"The  hurricane  is  to  the  west'ard,  and  we 
are  south  of  it.  This  breeze  is  the  in-suck. 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  301 

It  won't  blow  any  harder.  You  can  be 
gin  to  put  sail  on  her." 

"But  what's  the  good?  Where  shall  I 
sail  ?  This  is  the  second  day  without  ob 
servations,  and  we  should  have  sighted 
Hao  Island  yesterday  morning.  Which 
way  does  it  bear,  north,  south,  east,  or  what  ? 
Tell  me  that,  and  I'll  make  sail  in  a  jiffy." 

"I  am  no  navigator,  Captain,"  McCoy 
said  in  his  mild  way. 

"I  used  to  think  I  was  one,"  was  the  re 
tort,  "before  I  got  into  these  Paumotus." 

At  mid-day  the  cry  of  "Breakers  ahead  !" 
was  heard  from  the  lookout.  The  Pyrenees 
was  kept  off,  and  sail  after  sail  was  loosed 
and  sheeted  home.  The  Pyrenees  was  slid 
ing  through  the  water  and  fighting  a  current 
that  threatened  to  set  her  down  upon  the 
breakers.  Officers  and  men  were  working 
like  mad,  cook  and  cabin-boy,  Captain 
Davenport  himself,  and  McCoy  all  lending 
a  hand.  It  was  a  close  shave.  It  was  a  low 
shoal,  a  bleak  and  perilous  place  over  which 
the  seas  broke  unceasingly,  where  no  man 


302  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

could  live,  and  on  which  not  even  sea-birds 
could  rest.  The  Pyrenees  was  swept  within 
a  hundred  yards  of  it  before  the  wind  carried 
her  clear,  and  at  this  moment  the  panting 
crew,  its  work  done,  burst  out  in  a  torrent 
of  curses  upon  the  head  of  McCoy  —  of 
McCoy  who  had  come  on  board,  and  pro 
posed  the  run  to  Mangareva,  and  lured  them 
all  away  from  the  safety  of  Pitcairn  Island 
to  certain  destruction  in  this  baffling  and 
terrible  stretch  of  sea.  But  McCoy's  tran 
quil  soul  was  undisturbed.  He  smiled  at 
them  with  simple  and  gracious  benevolence, 
and,  somehow,  the  exalted  goodness  of  him 
seemed  to  penetrate  to  their  dark  and  sombre 
souls,  shaming  them,  and  from  very  shame 
stilling  the  curses  vibrating  in  their  throats. 
"Bad  waters  !  bad  waters  !"  Captain 
Davenport  was  murmuring  as  his  ship  forged 
clear;  but  he  broke  off  abruptly  to  gaze  at 
the  shoal  which  should  have  been  dead 
astern,  but  which  was  already  on  the 
Pyrenees'  weathersquarter  and  working  up 
rapidly  to  windward. 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  303 

He  sat  down  and  buried  his  face  in  his 
hands.  And  the  first  mate  saw,  and  McCoy 
saw,  and  the  crew  saw,  what  he  had  seen. 
South  of  the  shoal  an  easterly  current  had 
set  them  down  upon  it ;  north  of  the  shoal 
an  equally  swift  westerly  current  had 
clutched  the  ship  and  was  sweeping  her 
away. 

"I've  heard  of  these  Paumotus  before," 
the  captain  groaned,  lifting  his  blanched 
face  from  his  hands.  "  Captain  Moyendale 
told  me  about  them  after  losing  his  ship  on 
them.  And  I  laughed  at  him  behind  his 
back.  God  forgive  me,  I  laughed  at  him. 
What  shoal  is  that  ?"  he  broke  off,  to  ask 
McCoy. 

"I  don't  know,  Captain." 

"Why  don't  you  know?" 

"Because  I  never  saw  it  before,  and  be 
cause  I  have  never  heard  of  it.  I  do  know 
that  it  is  not  charted.  These  waters  have 
never  been  thoroughly  surveyed." 

"Then  you  don't  know  where  we 
are?" 


304  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

"No  more  than  you  do,"  McCoy  said 
gently. 

At  four  in  the  afternoon  cocoanutttrees 
were  sighted,  apparently  growing  out  of 
the  water.  A  little  later  the  low  land  of 
an  atoll  was  raised  above  the  sea. 

"I  know  where  we  are  now,  Captain." 
McCoy  lowered  the  glasses  from  his  eyes. 
"  That's  Resolution  Island.  We  are  forty 
miles  beyond  Hao  Island,  and  the  wind  is 
in  our  teeth." 

"Get  ready  to  beach  her  then.  Where's 
the  entrance  ?" 

"There's  only  a  canoe  passage.  But 
now  that  we  know  where  we  are,  we  can 
run  for  Barclay  de  Tolley.  It  is  only  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  from  here,  due 
nor'-nor'west.  With  this  breeze  we  can  be 
there  by  nine  o'clock  to-morrow  morning." 

Captain  Davenport  consulted  the  chart 
and  debated  with  himself. 

"If  we  wreck  her  here,"  McCoy  added, 
"we'd  have  to  make  the  run  to  Barclay 
de  Tolley  in  the  boats  just  the  same." 


THE   SEED  OF  McCOY  305 

The  captain  gave  his  orders,  and  once 
more  the  Pyrenees  swung  off  for  another 
run  across  the  inhospitable  sea. 

And  the  middle  of  the  next  afternoon 
saw  despair  and  mutiny  on  her  smoking 
deck.  The  current  had  accelerated,  the 
wind  had  slackened,  and  the  Pyrenees  had 
sagged  off  to  the  west.  The  lookout  sighted 
Barclay  de  Tolley  to  the  eastward,  barely 
visible  from  the  masthead,  and  vainly  and 
for  hours  the  Pyrenees  tried  to  beat  up  to  it. 
Ever,  like  a  mirage,  the  cocoanut*trees 
hovered  on  the  horizon,  visible  only  from 
the  masthead.  From  the  deck  they  were 
hidden  by  the  bulge  of  the  world. 

Again  Captain  Davenport  consulted 
McCoy  and  the  chart.  Makemo  lay 
seventy-five  miles  to  the  southwest.  Its 
lagoon  was  thirty  miles  long,  and  its  entrance 
was  excellent.  When  Captain  Daven 
port  gave  his  orders,  the  crew  refused  duty. 
They  announced  that  they  had  had  enough 
of  hell-fire  under  their  feet.  There  was  the 
land.  What  if  the  ship  could  not  make  it  ? 


306  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

They  could  make  it  in  the  boats.  Let  her 
burn,  then.  Their  lives  amounted  to  some 
thing  to  them.  They  had  served  faith 
fully  the  ship,  now  they  were  going  to  serve 
themselves. 

They  sprang  to  the  boats,  brushing  the 
second  and  third  mates  out  of  the  way,  and 
proceeded  to  swing  the  boats  out  and  to 
prepare  to  lower  away.  Captain  Daven 
port  and  the  first  mate,  revolvers  in  hand, 
were  advancing  to  the  break  of  the  poop, 
when  McCoy,  who  had  climbed  on  top  of 
the  cabin,  began  to  speak. 

He  spoke  to  the  sailors,  and  at  the  first 
sound  of  his  dovelike,  cooing  voice  they 
paused  to  hear.  He  extended  to  them  his 
own  ineffable  serenity  and  peace.  His  soft 
voice  and  simple  thoughts  flowed  out  to 
them  in  a  magic  stream,  soothing  them 
against  their  wills.  Long  forgotten  things 
came  back  to  them,  and  some  remembered 
lullaby  songs  of  childhood  and  the  content 
and  rest  of  the  mother's  arm  at  the  end  of 
the  day.  There  was  no  more  trouble,  no 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  307 

more  danger,  no  more  irk,  in  all  the  world. 
Everything  was  as  it  should  be,  and  it  was 
only  a  matter  of  course  that  they  should 
turn  their  backs  upon  the  land  and  put  to 
sea  once  more  with  hell-fire  hot  beneath 
their  feet. 

McCoy  spoke  simply ;  but  it  was  not 
what  he  spoke.  It  was  his  personality  that 
spoke  more  eloquently  than  any  word  he 
could  utter.  It  was  an  alchemy  of  soul 
occultly  subtile  and  profoundly  deep  —  a 
mysterious  emanation  of  the  spirit,  seduc 
tive,  sweetly  humble,  and  terribly  imperi 
ous.  It  was  illumination  in  the  dark  crypts 
of  their  souls,  a  compulsion  of  purity  and 
gentleness  vastly  greater  than  that  which 
resided  in  the  shining,  death-spitting  re 
volvers  of  the  officers. 

The  men  wavered  reluctantly  where  they 
stood,  and  those  who  had  loosed  the  turns 
made  them  fast  again.  Then  one,  and  then 
another,  and  then  all  of  them,  began  to 
sidle  awkwardly  away. 

McCoy's  face  was  beaming  with   child- 


308  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

like  pleasure  as  he  descended  from  the  top 
of  the  cabin.  There  was  no  trouble.  For 
that  matter  there  had  been  no  trouble 
averted.  There  never  had  been  any  trouble, 
for  there  was  no  place  for  such  in  the  blissful 
world  in  which  he  lived. 

"You  hypnotized  'em,"  Mr.  Konig 
grinned  at  him,  speaking  in  a  low  voice. 

"Those  boys  are  good,"  was  the  answer. 
"Their  hearts  are  good.  They  have  had 
a  hard  time,  and  they  have  worked  hard, 
and  they  will  work  hard  to  the  end." 

Mr.  Konig  had  no  time  to  reply.  His 
voice  was  ringing  out  orders,  the  sailors 
were  springing  to  obey,  and  the  Pyrenees 
was  paying  slowly  off  from  the  wind  until 
her  bow  should  point  in  the  direction  of 
Makemo. 

The  wind  was  very  light,  and  after  sun 
down  almost  ceased.  It  was  insufferably 
warm,  and  fore  and  aft  men  sought  vainly 
to  sleep.  The  deck  was  too  hot  to  lie  upon, 
and  poisonous  vapors,  oozing  through  the 
seams,  crept  like  evil  spirits  over  the  ship, 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  309 

stealing  into  the  nostrils  and  windpipes  of 
the  unwary  and  causing  fits  of  sneezing  and 
coughing.  The  stars  blinked  lazily  in  the 
dim  vault  overhead ;  and  the  full  moon, 
rising  in  the  east,  touched  with  its  light 
the  myriads  of  wisps  and  threads  and  spidery 
films  of  smoke  that  intertwined  and  writhed 
and  twisted  along  the  deck,  over  the  rails, 
and  up  the  masts  and  shrouds. 

"Tell  me,"  Captain  Davenport  said, 
rubbing  his  smarting  eyes,  "what  happened 
with  that  Bounty  crowd  after  they  reached 
Pitcairn  ?  The  account  I  read  said  they 
burnt  the  Bounty,  and  that  they  were  not 
discovered  until  many  years  later.  But 
what  happened  in  the  meantime  ?  I've 
always  been  curious  to  know.  They  were 
men  with  their  necks  in  the  rope.  There 
were  some  native  men,  too.  And  then 
there  were  women.  That  made  it  look  like 
trouble  right  from  the  jump." 

"There  was  trouble,"  McCoy  answered. 
"They  were  bad  men.  They  quarrelled 
about  the  women  right  away.  One  of  the 


310  THE  SEED  OF   McCOY 

mutineers,  Williams,  lost  his  wife.  All  the 
women  were  Tahitian  women.  His  wife  fell 
from  the  cliffs  when  hunting  sea-birds. 
Then  he  took  the  wife  of  one  of  the  native 
men  away  from  him.  All  the  native  men 
were  made  very  angry  by  this,  and  they 
killed  off  nearly  all  the  mutineers.  Then 
the  mutineers  that  escaped  killed  off  all  the 
native  men.  The  women  helped.  And  the 
natives  killed  each  other.  Everybody  killed 
everybody.  They  were  terrible  men. 

"Timiti  was  killed  by  two  other  natives 
while  they  were  combing  his  hair  in  friend 
ship.  The  white  men  had  sent  them  to  do 
it.  Then  the  white  men  killed  them.  The 
wife  of  Tullaloo  killed  him  in  a  cave  because 
she  wanted  a  white  man  for  husband. 
They  were  very  wicked.  God  had  hidden 
His  face  from  them.  At  the  end  of  two 
years  all  the  native  men  were  murdered, 
and  all  the  white  men  except  four.  They 
were  Young,  John  Adams,  McCoy,  who  was 
my  great-grandfather,  and  Quintal.  He 
was  a  very  bad  man,  too.  Once,  just  be- 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  311 

cause  his  wife  did  not  catch  enough  fish  for 
him,  he  bit  off  her  ear." 

"They  were  a  bad  lot!"  Mr.  Konig  ex 
claimed. 

"  Yes,  they  were  very  bad,"  McCoy  agreed 
and  went  on  serenely  cooing  of  the  blood  and 
lust  of  his  iniquitous  ancestry.  uMy  great 
grandfather  escaped  murder  in  order  to  die 
by  his  own  hand.  He  made  a  still  and 
manufactured  alcohol  from  the  roots  of  the 
ti*plant.  Quintal  was  his  chum,  and  they 
got  drunk  together  all  the  time.  At  last 
McCoy  got  delirium  tremens,  tied  a  rock 
to  his  neck,  and  jumped  into  the  sea. 

"Quintal's  wife,  the  one  whose  ear  he 
bit  off,  also  got  killed  by  falling  from  the 
cliffs.  Then  Quintal  went  to  Young  and 
demanded  his  wife,  and  went  to  Adams  and 
demanded  his  wife.  Adams  and  Young 
were  afraid  of  Quintal.  They  knew  he 
would  kill  them.  So  they  killed  him,  the 
two  of  them  together,  with  a  hatchet.  Then 
Young  died.  And  that  was  about  all  the 
trouble  they  had." 


3i2  THE  SEED  OF  McCOY 

"I   should  say  so,"  Captain  Davenport 
snorted.     "There  was  nobody  left  to  kill." 

"You   see,   God  had  hidden  His  face," 
McCoy  said. 

/By  morning  no  more  than  a  faint  air  was 
blowing  from  the  eastward,  and,  unable  to 
make  appreciable  southing  by  it,  Captain 
Davenport  hauled  up  full-and-by  on  the 
port  track.  He  was  afraid  of  that  terrible 
westerly  current  which  had  cheated  him  out 
of  so  many  ports  of  refuge.  All  day  the 
calm  continued,  and  all  night,  while  the 
sailors,  on  a  short  ration  of  dried  banana, 
were  grumbling.  Also,  they  were  growing 
weak  and  complaining  of  stomach  pains 
caused  by  the  straight  banana  diet.  All 
day  the  current  swept  the  Pyrenees  to  the 
westward,  while  there  was  no  wind  to  bear 
her  south.  In  the  middle  of  the  first  dog 
watch,  cocoanut-trees  were  sighted  due 
south,  their  tufted  heads  rising  above  the 
water  and  marking  the  low-lying  atoll 
beneath. 

"That  is  Taenga  Island,"  McCoy  said. 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  313 

"We  need  a  breeze  to-night,  or  else  we'll 
miss  Makemo." 

"What's  become  of  the  southeast  trade?  " 
the  captain  demanded.  "Why  don't  it 
blow?  What's  the  matter?" 

"It  is  the  evaporation  from  the  big  la 
goons  —  there  are  so  many  of  them," 
McCoy  explained.  "The  evaporation  up 
sets  the  whole  system  of  trades.  It  even 
causes  the  wind  to  back  up  and  blow  gales 
from  the  southwest.  This  is  the  Dangerous 
Archipelago,  Captain." 

Captain  Davenport  faced  the  old  man, 
opened  his  mouth,  and  was  about  to  curse, 
but  paused  and  refrained.  McCoy's  pres 
ence  was  a  rebuke  to  the  blasphemies  that 
stirred  in  his  brain  and  trembled  in  his 
larynx.  McCoy's  influence  had  been  grow 
ing  during  the  many  days  they  had  been 
together.  Captain  Davenport  was  an  au 
tocrat  of  the  sea,  fearing  no  man,  never 
bridling  his  tongue,  and  now  he  found  him 
self  unable  to  curse  in  the  presence  of  this 
old  man  with  the  feminine  brown  eyes  and 


3H  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

the  voice  of  a  dove.  When  he  realized  this, 
Captain  Davenport  experienced  a  distinct 
shock.  This  old  man  was  merely  the  seed  of 
McCoy,  of  McCoy  of  the  Bounty,  the  muti 
neer  fleeing  from  the  hemp  that  waited  him 
in  England,  the  McCoy  who  was  a  power 
for  evil  in  the  early  days  of  blood  and  lust 
and  violent  death  on  Pitcairn  Island./ 
/  Captain  Davenport  was  not  religious, 
yet  in  that  moment  he  felt  a  mad  impulse 
to  cast  himself  at  the  other's  feet  —  and  to 
say  he  knew  not  what.  It  was  an  emotion 
that  so  deeply  stirred  him,  rather  than  a 
coherent  thought,  and  he  was  aware  in 
some  vague  way  of  his  own  unworthiness 
and  smallness  in  the  presence  of  this  other 
man  who  possessed  the  simplicity  of  a  child 
and  the  gentleness  of  a  woman. 

Of  course  he  could  not  so  humble  himself 
before  the  eyes  of  his  officers  and  men. 
And  yet  the  anger  that  had  prompted  the 
blasphemy  still  raged  in  him.  He  sud 
denly  smote  the  cabin  with  his  clenched 
hand  and  cried : 


THF   SEED   OF   McCOY  315 

"Look  here,  old  man,  I  won't  be  beaten. 
These  Paumotus  have  cheated  and  tricked 
me  and  made  a  fool  of  me.  I  refuse  to  be 
beaten.  I  am  going  to  drive  this  ship,  and 
drive  and  drive  and  drive  clear  through  the 
Paumotus  to  China  but  what  I  find  a  bed 
for  her.  If  every  man  deserts,  I'll  stay  by 
her.  I'll  show  the  Paumotus.  They  can't 
fool  me.  She's  a  good  girl,  and  I'll  stick  by 
her  as  long  as  there's  a  plank  to  stand  on. 
You  hear  me  ?" 

"And  I'll  stay  with  you,  Captain,"  McCoy 
said. 

During  the  night,  light,  baffling  airs  blew 
out  of  the  south,  and  the  frantic  captain, 
with  his  cargo  of  fire,  watched  and  measured 
his  westward  drift  and  went  off  by  himself 
at  times  to  curse  softly  so  that  McCoy 
should  not  hear. 

Daylight  showed  more  palms  growing  out 
of  the  water  to  the  south. 

"That's  the  leeward  point  of  Makemo," 
McCoy  said.  "Katiu  is  only  a  few  miles 
to  the  west.  We  may  make  that." 


316  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

But  the  current,  sucking  between  the 
two  islands,  swept  them  to  the  northwest, 
and  at  one  in  the  afternoon  they  saw  the 
palms  of  Katiu  rise  above  the  sea  and  sink 
back  into  the  sea  again. 

A  few  minutes  later,  just  as  the  captain 
had  discovered  that  a  new  current  from  the 
northeast  had  gripped  the  Pyrenees,  the 
masthead  lookouts  raised  cocoanut  palms 
in  the  northwest. 

" It  is  Raraka,"  said  McCoy.  "We  won't 
make  it  without  wind.  The  current  is 
drawing  us  down  to  the  southwest.  But 
we  must  watch  out.  A  few  miles  farther 
on  a  current  flows  north  and  turns  in  a  circle 
to  the  northwest.  This  will  sweep  us  away 
from  Fakarava,  and  Fakarava  is  the  place 
for  the  Pyrenees  to  find  her  bed." 

"They  can  sweep  all  they  da —  all  they 
well  please,"  Captain  Davenport  remarked 
with  heat.  "We'll  find  a  bed  for  her  some 
where  just  the  same." 

But  the  situation  on  the  Pyrenees  was 
reaching  a  culmination.  The  deck  was  so 


THE   SEED  OF  McCOY  317 

hot  that  it  seemed  an  increase  of  a  few 
degrees  would  cause  it  to  burst  into  flames. 
In  many  places  even  the  heavy-soled  shoes 
of  the  men  were  no  protection,  and  they 
were  compelled  to  step  lively  to  avoid 
scorching  their  feet.  The  smoke  had  in 
creased  and  grown  more  acrid.  Every  man 
on  board  was  suffering  from  inflamed  eyes, 
and  they  coughed  and  strangled  like  a  crew 
of  tuberculosis  patients.  In  the  afternoon 
the  boats  were  swung  out  and  equipped. 
The  last  several  packages  of  dried  bananas 
were  stored  in  them,  as  well  as  the  instru 
ments  of  the  officers.  Captain  Davenport 
even  put  the  chronometer  into  the  long 
boat,  fearing  the  blowing  up  of  the  deck  at 
any  moment. 

All  night  this  apprehension  weighed 
heavily  on  all,  and  in  the  first  morning  light, 
with  hollow  eyes  and  ghastly  faces,  they 
stared  at  one  another  as  if  in  surprise  that 
the  Pyrenees  still  held  together  and  that  they 
still  were  alive. 

Walking  rapidly  at  times,  and  even  oc- 


318  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

casionally  breaking  into  an  undignified 
hop-skip-and-run,  Captain  Davenport  in 
spected  his  ship's  deck. 

"It  is  a  matter  of  hours  now,  if  not  of 
minutes,"  he  announced  on  his  return  to 
the  poop. 

The  cry  of  land  came  down  from  the 
masthead.  From  the  deck  the  land  was 
invisible,  and  McCoy  went  aloft,  while  the 
captain  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
to  curse  some  of  the  bitterness  out  of  his 
heart.  But  the  cursing  was  suddenly 
stopped  by  a  dark  line  on  the  water  which 
he  sighted  to  the  northeast.  It  was  not  a 
squall,  but  a  regular  breeze  —  the  disrupted 
trade-wind,  eight  points  out  of  its  direction 
but  resuming  business  once  more. 

"Hold  her  up,  Captain,"  McCoy  said 
as  soon  as  he  reached  the  poop.  "That's 
the  easterly  point  of  Fakarava,  and  we'll 
go  in  through  the  passage  full-tilt,  the  wind 
abeam,  and  every  sail  drawing." 

At  the  end  of  an  hour,  the  cocoanut-trees 
and  the  low-lying  land  were  visible  from 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  319 

the  deck.  The  feeling  that  the  end  of  the 
Pyrenees'  resistance  was  imminent  weighed 
heavily  on  everybody.  Captain  Davenport 
had  the  three  boats  lowered  and  dropped 
short  astern,  a  man  in  each  to  keep  them 
apart.  The  Pyrenees  closely  skirted  the 
shore,  the  surf-whitened  atoll  a  bare  two 
cable-|lengths  away. 

"Get  ready  to  wear  her,  Captain," 
McCoy  warned. 

And  a  minute  later  the  land  parted,  ex 
posing  a  narrow  passage  and  the  lagoon 
beyond,  a  great  mirror,  thirty  miles  in 
length  and  a  third  as  broad. 

"Now,  Captain." 

For  the  last  time  the  yards  of  the  Pyr 
enees  swung  around  as  she  obeyed  the 
wheel  and  headed  into  the  passage.  The 
turns  had  scarcely  been  made,  and  noth 
ing  had  been  coiled  down,  when  the  men 
and  mates  swept  back  to  the  poop  in  panic 
terror.  Nothing  had  happened,  yet  they 
averred  that  something  was  going  to  hap 
pen.  They  could  not  tell  why.  They 


320  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

merely  knew  that  it  was  about  to  happen. 
McCoy  started  forward  to  take  up  his 
position  on  the  bow  in  order  to  con  the 
vessel  in ;  but  the  captain  gripped  his  arm 
and  whirled  him  around. 

"Do  it  from  here,"  he  said.  "That  deck's 
not  safe.  What's  the  matter?"  he  de 
manded  the  next  instant.  "We're  stand 
ing  still." 

McCoy  smiled. 

"You  are  bucking  a  seven-knot  current, 
Captain,"  he  said.  "That  is  the  way  the 
full  ebb  runs  out  of  this  passage." 

At  the  end  of  another  hour  the  Pyrenees 
had  scarcely  gained  her  length,  but  the  wind 
freshened  and  she  began  to  forge  ahead. 

"Better  get  into  the  boats,  some  of  you," 
Captain  Davenport  commanded. 

His  voice  was  still  ringing,  and  the  men 
were  just  beginning  to  move  in  obedience, 
when  the  amidship  deck  of  the  Pyrenees,  in 
a  mass  of  flame  and  smoke,  was  flung  up 
ward  into  the  sails  and  rigging,  part  of  it 
remaining  there  and  the  rest  falling  into  the 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  321 

sea.  The  wind  being  abeam,  was  what  had 
saved  the  men  crowded  aft.  They  made 
a  blind  rush  to  gain  the  boats,  but  McCoy's 
voice,  carrying  its  convincing  message  of 
vast  calm  and  endless  time,  stopped  them. 

"Take  it  easy,"  he  was  saying.  "Every 
thing  is  all  right.  Pass  that  boy  down  some 
body,  please." 

The  man  at  the  wheel  had  forsaken  it 
in  a  funk,  and  Captain  Davenport  had 
leaped  and  caught  the  spokes  in  time  to  pre 
vent  the  ship  from  yawing  in  the  current 
and  going  ashore. 

"Better  take  charge  of  the  boats,"  he 
said  to  Mr.  Konig.  "Tow  one  of  them 
short,  right  under  the  quarter.  .  .  .  When 
I  go  over,  it'll  be  on  the  jump." 

Mr.  Konig  hesitated,  then  went  over  the 
rail  and  lowered  himself  into  the  boat. 

"Keep  her  off  half  a  point,  Captain." 

Captain  Davenport  gave  a  start.  He 
had  thought  he  had  the  ship  to  himself. 

"Ay,  ay;  half  a  point  it  is,"  he  an 
swered. 


322  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

Amidships  the  Pyrenees  was  an  open, 
flaming  furnace,  out  of  which  poured  an 
immense  volume  of  smoke  which  rose  high 
above  the  masts  and  completely  hid  the 
forward  part  of  the  ship.  McCoy,  in  the 
shelter  of  the  mizzen-shrouds,  continued  his 
difficult  task  of  conning  the  ship  through 
the  intricate  channel.  The  fire  was  work 
ing  aft  along  the  deck  from  the  seat  of  ex 
plosion,  while  the  soaring  tower  of  canvas 
on  the  mainmast  went  up  and  vanished  in 
a  sheet  of  flame.  Forward,  though  they 
could  not  see  them,  they  knew  that  the 
head-sails  were  still  drawing. 

"If  only  she  don't  burn  all  her  canvas 
off  before  she  makes  inside,"  the  captain 
groaned. 

"She'll  make  it,"  McCoy  assured  him 
with  supreme  confidence.  "There  is  plenty 
of  time.  She  is  bound  to  make  it.  And 
once  inside,  we'll  put  her  before  it;  that 
will  keep  the  smoke  away  from  us  and  hold 
back  the  fire  from  working  aft." 

A  tongue  of  flame  sprang  up  the  mizzen, 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  323 

reached  hungrily  for  the  lowest  tier  of  can 
vas,  missed  it,  and  vanished.  From  aloft 
a  burning  shred  of  rope-stuff  fell  square 
on  the  back  of  Captain  Davenport's  neck. 
He  acted  with  the  celerity  of  one  stung  by 
a  bee  as  he  reached  up  and  brushed  the 
offending  fire  from  his  skin. 

"How  is  she  heading,  Captain  ?" 

"Nor' west  by  west." 

"Keep  her  west-nor'west." 

Captain  Davenport  put  the  wheel  up 
and  steadied  her. 

"West  by  north,  Captain." 

"West  by  north  she  is." 

"And  now  west." 

Slowly,  point  by  point,  as  she  entered 
the  lagoon,  the  Pyrenees  described  the  circle 
that  put  her  before  the  wind ;  and  point  by 
point,  with  all  the  calm  certitude  of  a  thou 
sand  years  of  time  to  spare,  McCoy  chanted 
the  changing  course. 

"Another  point,  Captain." 

"A  point  it  is." 

Captain      Davenport      whirled      several 


324  THE   SEED   OF  McCOY 

spokes  over,  suddenly  reversing  and  com 
ing  back  one  to  check  her. 

"Steady." 

"Steady  she  is  —  right  on  it." 

Despite  the  fact  that  the  wind  was  now 
astern,  the  heat  was  so  intense  that  Cap 
tain  Davenport  was  compelled  to  steal 
sidelong  glances  into  the  binnacle,  letting 
go  the  wheel,  now  with  one  hand,  now 
with  the  other,  to  rub  or  shield  his  blister 
ing  cheeks.  McCoy's  beard  was  crinkling 
and  shrivelling  and  the  smell  of  it,  strong 
in  the  other's  nostrils,  compelled  him  to 
look  toward  McCoy  with  sudden  solici 
tude.  Captain  Davenport  was  letting  go 
the  spokes  alternately  with  his  hands  in 
order  to  rub  their  blistering  backs  against 
his  trousers.  Every  sail  on  the  mizzen- 
mast  vanished  in  a  rush  of  flame,  compel 
ling  the  two  men  to  crouch  and  shield  their 
faces. 

"Now,"  said  McCoy,  stealing  a  glance 
ahead  at  the  low  shore,  "four  points  up, 
Captain,  and  let  her  drive." 


THE   SEED   OF  McCOY  325 

Shreds  and  patches  of  burning  rope  and 
canvas  were  falling  about  them  and  upon 
them.  The  tarry  smoke  from  a  smoulder 
ing  piece  of  rope  at  the  captain's  feet  set 
him  off  into  a  violent  coughing  fit,  during 
which  he  still  clung  to  the  spokes. 

The  Pyrenees  struck,  her  bow  lifted, 
and  she  ground  ahead  gently  to  a  stop.  A 
shower  of  burning  fragments,  dislodged 
by  the  shock,  fell  about  them.  The  ship 
moved  ahead  again  and  struck  a  second 
time.  She  crushed  the  fragile  coral  under 
her  keel,  drove  on,  and  struck  a  third  time. 

"Hard  over,"  said  McCoy.  "Hard 
over  ?"  he  questioned  gently,  a  minute 
later. 

"She  won't  answer,"  was  the  reply. 

"All  right.  She  is  swinging  around." 
McCoy  peered  over  the  side.  "  Soft,  white 
sand.  Couldn't  ask  better.  A  beautiful 
bed." 

As  the  Pyrenees  swung  around  her  stern 
away  from  the  wind,  a  fearful  blast  of  smoke 
and  flame  poured  aft.  Captain  Davenport 


326  THE   SEED   OF   McCOY 

deserted  the  wheel  in  blistering  agony.  He 
reached  the  painter  of  the  boat  that  lay 
under  the  quarter,  then  looked  for  McCoy, 
who  was  standing  aside  to  let  him  go  down. 

"You  first,"  the  captain  cried,  gripping 
him  by  the  shoulder  and  almost  throwing 
him  over  the  rail.  But  the  flame  and 
smoke  were  too  terrible,  and  he  followed 
hard  after  McCoy,  both  men  wriggling 
on  the  rope  and  sliding  down  into  the  boat 
together.  A  sailor  in  the  bow,  without 
waiting  for  orders,  slashed  the  painter 
through  with  his  sheath^knife.  The  oars, 
poised  in  readiness,  bit  into  the  water,  and 
the  boat  shot  away. 

"A  beautiful  bed,  Captain,"  McCoy 
murmured,  looking  back. 

"Ay,  a  beautiful  bed,  and  all  thanks  to 
you,"  was  the  answer. 

The  three  boats  pulled  away  for  the 
white  beach  of  pounded  coral,  beyond 
which,  on  the  edge  of  a  cocoanut  grove, 
could  be  seen  a  half-dozen  grass-houses, 
and  a  score  or  more  of  excited  natives, 


THE  SEED  OF  McCOY  327 

gazing  wide-eyed  at  the  conflagration  that 
had  come  to  land. 

The  boats  grounded  and  they  stepped 
out  on  the  white  beach. 

"And  now,"  said  McCoy,  "I  must  see 
about  getting  back  to  Pitcairn." 


RETURN       CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

202  Main  Library 


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AS  SIAMPED  BELOW 


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RM  NO.  DD  6 


I 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   BERKEL 
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LJ  L.D    HB^Sj^ilj'o'AM , 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


